


Wish Upon The Star

by Garrae



Category: Castle (TV 2009)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Romance, wish upon a star
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28240968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garrae/pseuds/Garrae
Summary: "In a tiny, well hidden corner of her heart, Kate Beckett wished that Christmas was, well, different. She would have loved to have had a joyful, celebratory day, full of family and fun and food, carols and cheer and camaraderie."S2#CastleFicathonWinter2020Previously posted on Fanfiction.net
Relationships: Kate Beckett/Richard Castle
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

In a tiny, well hidden corner of her heart, Kate Beckett wished that Christmas was, well, different. She would have loved to have had a joyful, celebratory day, full of family and fun and food, carols and cheer and camaraderie.

Sadly, this year, as every year of the last ten, it wasn’t going to happen like that. Sure, there would be family – her father – and food – delicious, and they would be content and comfortable with each other, but…

It just wouldn’t be Christmas as she’d secretly like it to be: full of lights and decorations and music – and her mother. Somehow, she’d never managed to recapture the magic.

Of course, she didn’t admit it. She covered the crumpled, childish hole in her heart with a barrel-load of snark, sarcasm, and sardonic commentary on the appalling commercialisation of Christmas, prided herself on her anti-Yule arguments, and never, not for one single tiny second, allowed anyone at all to know that, although she took a Christmas Day shift every year to showcase her apparent feelings towards the season, she ensured that she never worked late on Christmas Eve, so that she could attend the midnight service, watching late into the night as the shepherds had done. It was enough, but never quite enough.

This year, her hard-won covering was flaking: scratched away by the abrasive cheerfulness and ostentatious happiness of her annoying shadow. He just kept on pushing and pushing on the sore spot of _celebrating_ , rather than – as she had to – surviving the disappointment that it wasn’t how it used to be.

And so she snipped and snapped and snarked; shut down every hopeful comment that Castle made, and curled tighter and tighter into herself. The more she snarked, the more Castle tried to convince her she was wrong, and so on in an ever-decreasing spiral.

Until finally, a few days before Christmas, she snapped. There was some excuse. The murder rate had been exceptionally high, the cases exceptionally complex, and she’d had little sleep for some weeks in consequence.

Still, it wasn’t (so Castle thought) his fault either. She _should_ enjoy the season, or at least lighten up: if she didn’t lighten up she’d be heading straight down the off-ramp to a full breakdown. Even if she couldn’t see the stress lines creasing her forehead; the dark shadows below her eyes; or count the number of Advil she seemed to be popping; even, dear heavens, that her consumption of coffee had gone beyond excessive into toxic – he could. He tried everything to talk her down, but nothing seemed to work. So he just kept trying.

Unfortunately, trying was exactly what he shouldn’t have done. But Castle being Castle, he couldn’t back off when he thought he could fix a problem, especially when his usual methods of fixing problems – talk, talk, and talk some more – worked beautifully on everyone else he knew. Talking it through _always_ worked.

Until it didn’t.

“Come on, Beckett. Some nice hot chocolate with Christmas spices and a slice of Yule log is just what you need to sweeten your temper and get you through the day.”

“I don’t want anything except coffee. _Plain_ coffee. Which is what _I_ am going to make now. Alone.”

“But I make coffee better.”

“Did you hear me? _Alone_.”

Suicidally stupidly, Castle followed her into the break room.

“Did you not hear me? I said _alone_. Twice.”

“Yes, but you’re cross and” –

“And I want to be left _alone_.”

Beckett gritted her teeth to stop the lava-flow of her miserable fury escaping. Sadly, Castle didn’t shut his mouth.

“But you’ll feel better if” –

She ran for it. The alternative was spilling out the foul sewerage pit of her unhappiness and anger over ten years of spoiled Christmases and pretending that she was content with the season when she never, ever, really was. Less than two minutes later, she was outside the precinct and heading for a coffee bar to which she rarely went: its chief (and only) virtue being that the caffeine content of its drinks was approximately four times that of any other coffee shop within Manhattan. The fact that the liquid it served was approximately the consistency of tar made no difference at all.

By the time she had purchased her drink, she’d rammed back the urge to burst into furious tears and then unload viciousness all over that _dumbassed, jackass_ , doesn’t-know-when-to- _shut-up_ idiot and have him thrown out of the bullpen for ever and a few days more. It was hugely tempting, but she knew that if she did it, just like a small, overtired, disappointed child, she’d break something that couldn’t be repaired. She didn’t need more breakages in her life: she’d had enough of those.

Two cups of caffeinated sludge later, she purchased her lunch, which would serve as an excuse for her absence, mortared the walls of her composure back into solid place, and returned to her desk.

Castle wasn’t there, which relieved her quite unreasonably. She just could not cope with any more talking. She put her head down and worked, which meant that she didn’t have to talk to anyone at all, right through the whole of the remainder of her shift. Precisely on the moment shift ended, she cleared her desk and left without a word of farewell. Home would be quiet, peaceful, and solitary.

Beckett entered her apartment and was instantly soothed by its serenity. Soothed, that was, until she noticed her attempts at Christmas décor: a tree, tastefully covered with toning baubles and lights; a glass star at the window; a holly wreath inside the door where she could admire it. She stared at her decorations as she removed her coat, hat and scarf – and fled for her unadorned bedroom, slammed the door on any hint of Christmas, and cried hopelessly into her pillows.

They’d had Christmas decorations at home. Hundreds of them, hopelessly mismatched and chaotic: ones she’d ineptly made at school or day care; ones they’d bought each other without a thought for those they already had, simply because they were pretty or funny or apt; ones her parents had made for her…

Every one of those decorations had spelt out love, joy and happiness in their mismatched neighbouring on the tree or the walls or the windows. All that her décor spelt out was the lack of any of it. She cried harder, bleeding mascara down her cheeks, streaking her face, staining the pale pillow cases. She wept herself into a crippling headache, from which she fell into stuporous sleep.

She woke no happier. There was no way to improve her view: nothing could fill the crevasse of disappointment that lurked beneath the glacier of her apparent contentment. Work, however, could help her glide over it; without falling into the abyss.

So, to work she went.

From his captain’s office, Montgomery had noticed Beckett’s early lunch, to-the-minute departure; and Castle’s exit only moments behind Beckett’s lunch break, and shaken his head when Beckett returned and Castle didn’t. Pair of squabbling children, he thought, who both needed to grow up a bit emotionally. Work-wise, they were just fine, though. Hoo boy, his solve stats were through the roof.

He peered out at Beckett, head down, shoulders slumped, and waited until she raised her head. That was not a happy Christmassy face: in fact, that looked to Montgomery like total exhaustion. He leafed through his papers. Ah. _How_ much overtime? Well, that he _could_ do something about. He made a quick calculation, found that over the last three months she’d racked up four full days’ overtime, and then checked to confirm his memory that she’d taken the early shift on Christmas Eve, but a full day shift on Christmas itself. O- _kay_.

“Detective Beckett,” he called.

She trudged into the office, and Montgomery got a good look at her, which only confirmed his thinking.

“I have reviewed your overtime records,” he told her. “You’ve done too much.”

“Sir,” was all she said. It didn’t ameliorate Montgomery’s worries.

“Four days off. We can cope without you. I don’t want you in again until Christmas Day.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, defeat tinging her tones.

“Starting right now,” he added.

“Yes, sir.”

“Dismissed. Get some rest,” he added.

Beckett trudged out of the bullpen. She’d been half-expecting this from the moment she’d caught Montgomery sneaking glances at her from his desk. It didn’t make it any easier. She supposed she could wrap up in thermal sports gear and go for a run; it wouldn’t make her any more miserable.

***

An hour or so after Beckett had been evicted from the bullpen, Castle wandered in, bearing coffee, but not bearing a happy mood. Despite the incessant chatter, he’d realised – half a moment too late – that Beckett was really, really upset; but when he’d gone to the usual source of solace in search of her – that would be the nearest coffee bar – she hadn’t been there. He’d concluded, quite correctly, that she was hiding from him, which had led him to the unpleasant conclusion that _he’d_ upset her, rather than simply the season. He didn’t like feeling guilty. Guilt, however, could easily be assuaged by carefully purchasing, from Beckett’s most favourite café, her daily coffee and bear claw, and then conveying it to the bullpen where she would both need and appreciate it.

His strategy was stymied when she wasn’t there. While he liked coffee, he didn’t much like it with added vanilla, so a bit like any remnants of better mood, the coffee went down the break room drain. He ate the bear claw, though. No point in wasting pastries.

There were still flakes on his lips when Montgomery spotted him and called him in.

“Beckett’s taking some of her accumulated time,” he said, and awaited developments.

“Oh.” Castle drooped.

“Likely she’ll be at home, decorating for Christmas.”

“She hates Christmas,” Castle pointed out. “I’d have thought you would know that.”

“I would have thought _you_ did,” Montgomery jabbed back. “Seeing as how you’ve spent the last week trying to talk to her about it and getting shut down.”

Castle growled.

“You trying to tell me you didn’t? How about telling me what you said yesterday that sent her running out the office?”

“Nothing!” Castle exclaimed. “I was going to make her coffee for her.”

Montgomery lifted his eyebrows.

“I was,” he insisted. “I wasn’t going to talk about Christmas at all.”

“Hm.” Disbelief hung heavily around the Captain.

“Anyway, she went out.”

“Hm.”

Castle was really getting irritated by that noise. “I’m not her keeper.”

“I thought you might be her _friend_ ,” Montgomery mused. “She’s now off till Christmas.”

“Try telling her that. I’m not the one cutting off everyone.” Castle stomped out and stomped home. Montgomery’s meddling was infuriating.

Once at home, he had a warming coffee and then comfort-food lunch, soothed by the slight scent of spruce from his tree, massively over-decorated with everything from delicate glass baubles costing a fortune to lumpy creations from Alexis’s day care efforts; lights, tinsel, and the star on the top. Everything about it summed up the best parts of his life: his daughter (always at the top); his family; his writing, wealth and fame; his totally wonderful life.

Except for the little niggle of Beckett, that was. Everything was utterly wonderful in his life except for Beckett’s hatred of Christmas, joy, celebrations and anything _fun_. Fun, in Castle’s view, being fun with him. Surprisingly, he didn’t necessarily mean _sex_ , though that would undoubtedly be a great deal of fun. He mostly meant – well, _togetherness_. Time together that didn’t involve murder (or involve threats to murder him). _Dates_. Cuddles. Happiness.

And there was the problem. Beckett wasn’t happy. Okay, so sometimes she was cheerful, but mostly she was simply driven. Wake, work, sleep. Sure, she was incredibly good at her job, but the brief satisfaction of putting another killer behind bars didn’t seem to last: arrest, convict – next. Rinse and repeat. She didn’t do enough sleeping either, though it didn’t seem to affect her.

He could make her happy. He _knew_ he could – because she was, well, not _happier_ , but certainly less unhappy than she’d been at the beginning of the fall. She smiled more, though it was still tight and constricted. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a full, open, joyful smile across her face – and he ought to. She _should_ smile joyfully; she _should_ be happy; she _should_ relax.

He wanted that to be her Christmas present.

That was the core of it. He couldn’t give her anything, because she wouldn’t take more than a coffee and a bear claw from him; maybe a box of chocolates on a really, really good day. But he _could_ give her joy.

If only she’d stop snipping and snapping and snarking long enough to accept it.

Castle planted his feet firmly on his desk, leaned back in his chair, and began to turn his considerable intelligence on to strategies to show Beckett that she could have joy. The only issues were that she was neither in the bullpen nor were there more than a very few days before Christmas.

He smiled. He always worked best when a deadline loomed.

***

Beckett did precisely what she had intended to do. She wrapped herself up in thermal sports base layers, and then, with a specialist pair of running shoes allowing her to run even if it was slippery (they’d cost a fortune, but today she’d gladly have paid double), she went out to pound the paths of Central Park. Her playlist didn’t have a single Christmas song on it, and she ignored anything that might have the faintest hint of the season about it until she’d run out her unhappiness and started back for home. Her steps hit the sidewalks harder than she’d have liked, tension still at the base of her shoulders. She told herself that all she needed was a scalding hot bath with scented salts, and her favourite moisturiser afterwards.

By the time she’d reached her apartment, she’d shielded her disappointment with the season again: made herself coffee, and tried not to think of how, in childhood Christmases, there had been spiced hot chocolate, rich and crowned with whipped cream and marshmallows, luxuriously coating her throat and warming her from her joyful heart outwards, from head to toe.

Suddenly her coffee didn’t taste as good. She set it down, then, abruptly, tipped it down the sink. She didn’t want it any more. She wanted her mom’s hot chocolate and Christmas cookies and candy canes on the tree and –

Her mom.

She wanted her mom.

But her mom was dead. Nothing would ever bring her back. And there was _no reason_ to be so upset this year when it was _ten_ years since she’d…gone. Beckett had managed just _fine_ for the last five years, and she would manage just _fine_ this year too.

The cushion that she’d found herself hugging squelched. The crystal star at her window gleamed, but it was a cold, clear light, giving no solace. _In the bleak midwinter_ , she thought, and the wind whined coldly at the window; as cold as her locked-down heart, as sad as the tear trickling down her cheek, unmopped. The night drew in, and still she sat, chilled and alone.

And then she stood up, and removed every single decoration from the walls and the tree, dismantled the tree, and put it all away, where she couldn’t see it and wouldn’t think about it. Not one ornament remained – except for the cold, clear crystal star, hanging in the window. None of it had made her any happier, so why bother? The star was all that she wanted or needed. Cold, remote and uncaring.

Just like she should be. The cushion squelched again.

Eventually, she thought that she should eat some dinner, though she wasn’t hungry and nothing appealed to her to provide her with an appetite. She glanced into her fridge, which was empty, and her small freezer, which was equally deserted; leafed through some takeout menus and found nothing to tempt her to make any effort. So she didn’t.

Some time after eight, a knock on the door roused her from unthinking stillness. She didn’t want to open the door, but she didn’t have a good excuse not to. If it were Lanie, she’d just keep banging on the door till Beckett answered, or if Beckett didn’t answer, Lanie would start calling her. On the other hand, Lanie might have brought wine, which wouldn’t be a bad plan.

It wasn’t Lanie.

“You,” she said, standing in the doorway.

“Me,” Castle said. “Though actually I should say _it is I_ , to be grammatically correct.”

“Ego and super-ego, come to visit. Should I be impressed?”

“Mean,” Castle said. “I brought you something.”

“Really? Why?”

Not, Castle noted, _what_? Why?, instead. “I thought you’d like it.”

“Oh. What is it?” She didn’t sound enthusiastic, and she was still blocking the doorway.

“Dessert.” She didn’t smile. “Summer pudding, to be precise.”

“What?”

Castle grinned. “Summer pudding.” She gaped at him. “Can I come in? It’s a dessert.” Slowly, Beckett moved aside. Castle took the pudding through to the kitchen area, and began to open cupboards and drawers.

“What are you doing?”

“Finding plates and cutlery so you can sample your dessert.”

“What?”

“I have brought you summer pudding,” Castle said slowly and clearly. She scowled. “You don’t like winter” – he very carefully avoided saying _Christmas_ – “so I’ve brought something summery to take the thought of winter away.” He located plates and then spoons and forks. “There’s cream to go with it, too.”

Scowl faded slightly, and Beckett came over to the counter to see what was appearing. She peered at the box. Castle opened it, and drew out cream. She knew what cream was.

She did not know what _that_ was.

 _That_ was red, and wobbly. “It’s Jell-O!” she said, disgusted.

“It is _not_!” Castle retorted. “Absolutely not. Jell-O is for hospitals and small kid birthday parties. This is summer pudding, like I said, made by my own fair hands to banish winter from the day.” He had, though he’d made it yesterday, intending to eat it with his family tonight.

“You are so full of it.”

“Dessert? Nope. I brought the whole pudding to share with you. I am empty of eating, devoid of dessert, parched of pudding” –

“Stop! That doesn’t even make sense.”

Castle smiled happily. “No, I know. But it’s summertime, and nothing needs to make sense in summertime. It’s for drifting through warm meadows, scented with stocks” –

“This is not Wall Street and stocks don’t smell.”

“It’s a flower. Though they say money has its own aroma.”

Beckett screeched. Dimly, if she had but realised, she’d have noticed that she felt better – and hungry.

“Anyway, here is the sumptuous supremacy that is summer pudding, all ready for your delectation and delight.” He carefully cut into it, and placed a slice on a plate, dousing it in cream; then cut a second, equally drowned. “I do love cream,” he said happily.

“You’ll get fat,” Beckett snarked.

“Not if I exercise.”

For some reason, the glint that flickered momentarily in his eye made Beckett think of exercise in pairs, some distance from a gym. Ridiculous.


	2. Chapter 2

Castle conveyed the dessert plates to her dining table, and set them out. Unobtrusively, he looked around, and had to work hard not to wince. A week ago, she’d had Christmas decorations up. Now, there was only a single star in the window. He bit his tongue on a flow of questions, which would only have him evicted at Glock-point.

He congratulated himself on his brilliant idea. Pretend that it was simply winter that Beckett hated, and then provide her with summertime – sunshine and laughter and warmth – until she was happy. Then…he’d see where they were.

“Try it,” he encouraged. Beckett regarded the portion dubiously, but finally took a morsel.

Three minutes later, in which she hadn’t said a single word, her plate was scraped perfectly clean.

“There’s more,” Castle offered, deeply pleased by her appetite, but not showing it.

“Yes, please.”

He gave her another substantial slice, and wondered when she’d last eaten, to be stowing it away like that.

“Summer pudding?” she queried.

“Yep. Winter’s dull and dreary, so think of summer till you’ve cheered up – and don’t look out of the window and spoil it.”

“I thought you liked Christmas. And Thanksgiving.”

“I don’t like winter,” Castle said dismissively. “It’s cold, and everyone’s all wrapped up.” He smiled, crinkling the area around his eyes. “I like it when you aren’t all wrapped up,” he flirted.

Beckett rolled her eyes. “You’re so predictable.”

“You not unwrapping is just as predictable,” Castle teased. “If it were summer, though, I’d try to persuade you up to the Hamptons.”

“Hamptons?”

“I have a house there.”

“Of course you have,” she sighed.

Castle ignored that. “I’ve got a lovely swimming pool” – he paused. “You know,” he said in a very different tone, “it’s heated. Screened from the wind and weather – glass walls. I’ve got some big space heaters” – he hadn’t, but he would have by tomorrow if this on-the-fly wild-ass idea came off – “and it would be just like summer.” His eyes lit up. “Just like summer. We could have picnic food and you could swim and” –

“And you just want to see me in a swimsuit.”

“I’d prefer a bikini,” Castle provoked. “You’d look amazing in a bikini. I mean, you’d look amazing in anything – or even better, nothing at all – shutting up now,” he said at her searing glare.

“It’s not summer,” she said.

“You could pretend.”

“This isn’t a fairy story for small children. The reality is, it’s winter.” She put her spoon down with a clunk. “Dark and cold.” Her gaze shifted to the window, as she stood and went towards it. “Desserts and stories don’t change that.”

“No, but you can forget about it,” Castle tried, seeing his brilliant idea slipping away. “Pretend for a day or two.”

“Pretending is for pre-schoolers.” Her shoulders slumped. “It doesn’t change anything.”

He couldn’t bear the heartbreak hiding under her voice: took two steps and hugged her as he would his mother or daughter: simply and only comfort. “No,” he murmured, “but it could help for a little while.” He stroked her hair soothingly. “Stories are only stories, but they take you away from reality for a little while, don’t they? That’s why we read.”

“Still not real,” arrived, muffled, into the fabric of his shirt.

“I never said they were. They’re an escape, for a while. Nothing more.”

She straightened up and stepped fractionally back – but not enough to disconnect; only enough to look upward. He realised that she hadn’t any shoes on, merely soft socks. His hands slid down to link at the small of her back: no pressure, no demands.

“I could use an escape,” she sighed, almost inaudibly. “But…”

“But?”

“Where would I go?”

“Come to the Hamptons for a couple of days. Just like reading a book, and then come back.”

Her eyes widened. “But…”

He followed her thought. “Mother will look after Alexis” – he grinned – “or maybe vice versa. For two days, it won’t upset anyone if I’m away. I’ll be back” – he stopped.

“In time for Christmas,” she said, so neutrally that he knew it had bitten hard.

He bulled through. “Yes. But that’s not what I offered. I offered a couple of days of pretending that it’s summer. Nothing else. I’m not suggesting you come for Christmas – anyway, you said you were on shift; I’m not asking you to think about it. I’m giving you a couple of pretend summer days in the Hamptons.” He drew breath. “And after that what you do is up to you, and what I do is up to me. But if you wanna, we’ll go up tomorrow, stay a day, and come back the next day.” He paused, and patted a sharp scapula. “Think about it.”

She stepped back. “Coffee?” she asked. It could have been a shut down, but yet it wasn’t: carrying more thoughtfulness than terseness.

“Please,” Castle confirmed, and didn’t catch her back in, though he wanted to. Instead, he looked around: the gaps where decorations had been, the hook still on the door where there had been a wreath: untraditionally inside, where, she’d said, she could see it. Her apartment had been festive.

And yet.

Even in its festivity, there had been a faint impression of effort: that festivity had been forced to the fore. Covering up…yes. It had been a façade, not feelings. A fake. But why bother? It wasn’t like she had hundreds of guests, or big parties, or…well, many visitors at all, really.

“Coffee,” came from behind him.

“Thanks.” He sat down, a small distance away from her, and set the back of his mind to planning three days in the Hamptons, pretending it was summer, in hope that she’d agree. Space heaters, and the screening up round the pool; fill the pool and heat it… Dan would set it all up, if he called tonight, and if he paid enough, it would all be ready by lunchtime. He could put in a food order at a local store, and have it delivered. The food wouldn’t be terribly summery, but…that was okay. Wine – he’d take with him. And there were no decorations or Christmas trees at his Hamptons house, because they were never there at Christmas.

She only had to agree.

Her brow was furrowed as she sipped her coffee. Castle observed the signs of thought, and (amazingly) didn’t interrupt. To be fair, he was pretty sure that if he did, she’d definitely decide against him. Coming to the Hamptons, he self-corrected. It didn’t mean…

…but he wanted it to mean that she’d decide _for_ him. On him. And preferably around and above and beside and under him.

He lapsed into reverie, and drank his coffee peacefully – apparently. Internally, his heart was jumping, his thoughts skittering; desperate for her to decide. As the minutes passed, he began to believe that she was simply trying to find a way to say _no_.

“Okay,” she said. “I shouldn’t, but I can’t bear the” – there was the tiniest hitch in her words – “winter any more. Let’s go have some summer.”

Castle brightened up instantly. “Sure,” he bounced. “We could even have Midsummer – reverse the polarities from Midwinter.” He stood up. “I need to get home and make some arrangements,” he enthused. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning – early. Uh, six? That way we’ll be there by mid-morning and we can have a picnic lunch.” His coat, scarf and hat were already on. “See you then. Till tomorrow, Beckett.” He was out of the door before she’d finished saying _bye_.

Beckett stared at the space where Castle had been, and wondered what, precisely, she’d let herself in for. Then she poured herself more coffee, and thought that anything would be better than being in Manhattan with her memories and misery. She took her cup with her, and went to her bedroom to pack, half as if it were summer: bikinis, shorts, t-shirts and sandals; half warm pants and sweaters; scarf, gloves and hat to go with her heavy winter coat. Everything neatly packed in her small suitcase, she showered and went to bed.

***

Castle, by contrast, raced home and started to make calls. It was well after nine, but Dan, used to his fits of _I‘ll be there tomorrow morning_ at all times of the year (usually when Gina was threatening him with fire ants, honey, and daily excision of his liver and kidneys by a visit from an eagle – she read far too many myths), would take his calls at any hour, especially given how much no-notice visits paid him.

Within the hour, everything was arranged. The pool might not be completely warmed by lunchtime, but Dan promised that it would not be long after then. Glass screen walls would ensure that the area stayed warm and untroubled by even a zephyr of a breeze; space heaters would bring it up past seventy-five degrees. There would be picnic food in the fridge, and ice cream in the freezer. Everything was ready.

“And Dan,” Castle said, “one last thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Could you make absolutely sure there are _no_ Christmas decorations visible anywhere in the house?”

“Huh? None? But” –

“Yeah. I know. But…my friend has problems with Christmas. Bad memories. So could you just do a final check in case?”

“Sure. Don’t wanna remind people of bad things at this time of year.”

“Nope. Thanks, Dan.”

Castle put his phone down and wandered out of his study to explain to his mother. She was, naturally, indulging in a glass of his wine, though in possible deference to their last “discussion” about which bottles she wasn’t to touch, it wasn’t his _best_ wine.

“Mother?”

“Yes, kiddo?”

“I need you to be around for Alexis for the next three days. I’m going up to the Hamptons to finish off some writing – Gina’s on my ass about it.” That was, in fact, true. Gina was _always_ on his ass about writing whether he was ahead, behind, or on track.

“Can’t you just tell her to back off?”

“I could, but then she’ll harass me through Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and I don’t want that. I want Christmas to be us.” He grinned. “And this way you can wrap up my presents without me peeking.”

“Who says I’ve got you a present?” his mother said, nose in the air. “Your behaviour is such that coal and a switch is more likely. The way you treat that poor detective of yours is just terrible. I hope you’ve gotten her a good present. She must need a whole case of wine to get over your troublemaking.”

“I don’t troublemake, I help solve crimes,” Castle pointed out, his own nose in the air.

“You should be writing.”

“Stop channelling Gina, Mother. Now, will you be around or not?”

“Of course I shall. Time on my own with my delightful granddaughter is very precious.”

Castle declined the offered bait, and ignored the implication that he was an unwanted extra in his own loft. “Thank you.”

He went to explain to Alexis, with the same story. “Okay, Dad,” she said. “It’ll give me a chance to do some present wrapping without you sneaking around trying to find out what’s in everything.” She looked up from her homework. “You will be back for Christmas Eve, won’t you?”

“Of course! I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“That’s okay, then. Do I need to know about any deliveries?”

“No, Edward will take care of them until someone’s home.”

“Okay. Have a great time writing – I won’t tell Gina where you are.”

“Thanks,” Castle said, and hugged her.

He packed rapidly, including some form-fitting white t-shirts and cargo shorts, swimwear, and then winter-wear for going out in, and then messed around until a surprisingly early bed-time, conscious of the horrifically early hour for which his alarm was set.

***

“Good morning, good morning,” Castle carolled, to Beckett’s total lack of appreciation of a fine baritone.

“Urgh. Still night time.”

“I have coffee in the car, just for you.”

Beckett’s eyes managed half-opening before they drooped back down. She was dressed and ready to leave: she just wanted to be asleep again. Possibly she would drink the coffee first.

Castle picked up her suitcase and towed her out with the other hand, noting again the lack of any decoration except the star in the window. He wondered why she’d left that up, when everything else was gone, but didn’t ask. He didn’t want to spoil this trip before they’d even departed.

Beckett drained the coffee, snuggled down into Castle’s astonishingly comfortable Mercedes, shut her eyes, and was asleep again in seconds, rather to Castle’s amusement. Asleep, she was, well, cute. Her lashes dusted across her cheeks, paler and slightly sharper-boned than he thought they should be; she exhaled tiny whiffling noises that made her sound much younger; and she was curled up as if she was cuddling something. It was totally adorable. He transferred his gaze to be firmly on the road, and as soon as he could see clear highway, put his foot down.

Beckett slept the whole way to the Hamptons, without making a single sound other than the whiffle, and only woke as the car crunched over the gravel driveway. She scrubbed her eyes like a five-year old, and blinked into slow consciousness.

“We’re here,” Castle told her.

“Already?” She blushed. “Did I sleep the whole way?”

“Yep.” He grinned mischievously. “You snore,” he teased.

“I do not!”

Castle relented. “No. You don’t, but you make this little whiffling noise, like a tiny steam train. You’re really cute when you’re asleep.”

“Enjoy it,” she snarked. “You’re not likely to see it any other time.”

He pouted. “How unfair. Don’t you ever sleep on sun loungers in the summer?”

“Nope,” Beckett said, entirely unconvincingly. “I don’t.”

Castle smiled in a way that made it clear he knew that she was fibbing, and then got out of the car. “Come on. Welcome to my unhumble abode.”

Beckett tried not to stare. She really did. But seeing the place that Castle so casually described as his summer house in the Hamptons, the whole weight of his fame and riches fell in on her. “I can’t stay here,” she said. “This… it’s far too much. You can’t want me here.”

“I can want you anywhere,” Castle oozed, “but here’s comfortable and private.”

“That _wasn’t_ what I meant!”

“Wasn’t it?” He pouted again, and batted his lashes insincerely. “What a pity. I would have enjoyed that enormously – and so would you.”

Somehow, in her flush of irritation, Beckett found herself inside, which wasn’t quite as intimidatingly…mansion-like.

“Coffee,” Castle said. “I sure need one, and since you’ve never knowingly refused any caffeinated brown liquid – or sludge – that calls itself coffee, I’m guessing you’d like one too?”

“Yes, please. Uh, where’s the bathroom? I wanna wash my face.”

“I’ll show you. It’s en-suite with your room.”

“Thanks.”

Ensconced in a warm-toned, cosy bedroom, featuring a bed the size of the Lusitania and a wonderful view of the ocean; Beckett realised that Castle had brought her suitcase through, breathed a sigh of relief at the complete lack of Christmas decoration, and made herself comfortable. That done, she wended her way back to the door, and from there found the kitchen, where Castle was making the promised coffee.

“Hey,” she said softly. Somehow, this immense mansion felt like a home, and she was already relaxing into its warmth.

“It’s just about ready. Let’s take it outside to the pool.”

Beckett boggled. “Pool?”

“Yep. I promised you summer. The pool’s screened, space heated, and the water will be warm shortly if it isn’t already. Just like summer.”

She boggled some more. “You made summer?” she said blankly. “You really made summer, just to cheer me up?”

“Uh, yes?”

She turned tail and fled. Castle dumped the coffee down on the counter and went after her. He caught up just as she was about to duck back into her bedroom, spun her round and gripped her shoulders.

“What’s up?” he asked, saw her brimming eyes and simply pulled her against him. “There, there,” he soothed. “C’mere, and lemme hug you.”

“Why?” eventually dribbled out among her tears.

“Why bring summer? Because I could, and it makes – well, I _thought_ it would make you happier.”

A sniffle arose from his shoulder. “But you love Christmas and all the family stuff and everything.”

“I like summer too. Barbecues and sunshine and swimming. And we’re only here for a couple of days. I can do both.”

Which only made Beckett cry more, which hadn’t been the plan _at all_.

“What’s wrong?” he murmured. “This isn’t about summer, is it? It’s not an allergic reaction? Because it would be terrible if you were allergic to my sweater or shirt. I’d have to leave them off all the time I’m around you and then you’d find my muscular chest totally irresistible.”

Even that didn’t raise an eyeroll or snort. He cuddled her close, just as he had the previous evening, and stopped talking. Slowly, she stopped sniffling.

“D’you want a few minutes?” he asked. She nodded into his pectoral. He released her, and turned back to the kitchen and his coffee.

Beckett retreated into her bedroom, shut the door, and fell on to the bed. She hadn’t meant to collapse. She’d meant to be cool, calm, and friendly. To enjoy a couple of days away from the Christmas-addicted Manhattan, and paste her shattered soul back together before she had to sit through Christmas dinner with her father and pretend to celebrate right along with him. Suddenly, it had all fallen apart.

Suddenly, _she’d_ fallen apart. She curled into a shamed ball: tight around herself. She could have lived with his annoying flirtatiousness: it was his kindness that had undone her. He’d seen that she hated Christmas, pretended that he thought she hated winter, and made her a second summer.

Just to make her happier.

And now she’d ruined it all by falling apart as if she hated it when, simply, she couldn’t believe that he’d done so much, so quickly. He was trying to make her happy and all she could do was cry and make him unhappy. She swallowed down her misery, washed her face, put on some make-up –

And knew it wasn’t enough. She sat back down on the bed and breathed: in, out, in, out; until it was no longer a sob; until she’d centred herself and found the still, calm air that she needed to be as happy as this should have made her. She should have been happy. And instead, she was broken.

Her composure collapsed again, and she drew in around herself; a Kleenex from the box on the nightstand against her face, so that her make-up didn’t stain the linens.

It was all going wrong, because _she_ couldn’t control her emotions, and they’d barely been here for half an hour.


	3. Chapter 3

In the kitchen, sipping his coffee, Castle thought over Beckett’s breakdown. He ought to be upset by it, but he wasn’t: partly because any route to having Beckett in his arms was a good thing; but, less selfishly, because he thought that Beckett actually breaking down and having some visible emotion that wasn’t anger might do her a lot of good. He only ever saw her calm and pleasant or irritated, angry or furious. There didn’t seem to be a balancing input of joyful or laughing or even miserable. So, while he’d much rather she were happy, he’d take genuine emotion over locked-down facades.

He finished the cup, and wandered off to check that the pool area was suitably warm and summery. Finding that it was, he wandered back to the kitchen, which was empty of anything and anyone except for a lonely, empty, coffee mug.

A noise came from behind him. He turned, and gaped.

“Is there coffee?” Beckett asked hopefully.

“Uh, sure.” But Castle didn’t turn towards the machine: he was too busy staring at Beckett in a summer sarong, sandals, and surely a swimming costume underneath – or was it a bikini?

“Please? And then you can show me this pool and the slice of summer you’ve created.” She smiled beautifully.

It was such a shame that her smile was just another cover-up of her real feelings. He was utterly sure of it. But she…well, she was trying, he thought, to make up for running away in tears, and she couldn’t possibly know that he’d have taken warm pants and a sweater and some real feeling over a bikini and faked composure any day of the week.

And so he poured her a coffee. “Wait there, while I change,” he said, and dashed off to make the fastest change in recorded history, returning in a t-shirt and cargo shorts over his swimming trunks. Beckett had her nose in the mug, but as she saw him she upended it and set it down. “Let’s go. Summer time!” He grabbed her hand, and grinned as he pulled her up and out of the kitchen, through the house, and finally to a set of glass doors. “Out we go.”

She braced herself as the doors opened, and then relaxed in surprise as a warm breeze swirled around her.

“Summer!” Castle bounced again.

She stepped out into the heat – at least eighty – and stared around at what Castle had managed in less than twelve hours. The pool was filled, and lapping gently at a tiled space, with clear screens acting as walls to block any hint of winter while allowing her to survey a magnificent view. Space heaters at every column kept the air warm, and when she kicked off her sandals and dipped a toe in the water, it was pleasantly warm as well. She turned, and saw two wide, cushioned sun loungers, with a small table between them, on which, later, drinks might be conveniently placed.

While she’d been staring, Castle had sneaked up close behind her. “Like it?” he asked: a hint of worry in his voice.

“Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes.” She retrieved her shoes, flumped down on a lounger, and smiled. “I should’ve brought sunglasses.”

“But then I wouldn’t be able to watch your expression,” Castle smirked.

“Stare creepily, you mean.”

“Nope. Watch with admiration.”

She blushed. She tried really hard not to, but the look in his bright blue eyes scorched. Of course he noticed, but she could ignore that, and she did.

Castle, completely confident of his body and the effect it generally had on interested women, stripped off his shirt and shorts with total insouciance and an unnecessary amount of flexing of biceps, pectorals and anything else he thought he could flex. Dan had done a fantastic job of heating the area, so there would be no unattractive goosebumps or blue tinges to his skin to put Beckett off.

Oh. Oh, _oooohhhhhh_. She couldn’t look away, and that wasn’t his _face_ she was watching. He was tempted to snark _eyes up here, Beckett_ , as she would do – and had done, often enough, but he liked being appreciated and he liked being appreciated by Beckett even more…and if he liked it any more than _that_ , she’d see rather more than he thought she might be expecting.

“I’m going to swim,” he said, after a few seconds. “What about you?”

“Uh… Oh. Um, yeah, in a minute. You test the water first.”

Castle slipped in with barely a splash, and hummed with delight. “Come on in, the water’s lovely,” he called, smiling at the cliché.

“In a minute,” she repeated, and lay back on the lounger, wriggling her shoulders in the warmth of the nearby heater. Castle splashed off, mutating into a smooth freestyle as he hit the deeper water of the far side.

Beckett snuggled into her nice warm lounger in the nice warm air and considered her options. She could behave like a mewling, puling baby: bursting into tears and spoiling everything; or she could just damn well _grow up_ and pull herself together, enjoy the couple of days in the Hamptons and – admit it – Castle’s company. He was doing something to make her happy and she would _be_ happy and make sure he was happy about her being happy.

Whatever it took. Whatever. It. Took.

Right now, looking at Castle was making her happy. Well. Happy might not be an accurate word, but he was a very pleasing sight. She could start happiness right here, right now, simply by removing her sarong.

He spluttered, choked, and barely escaped drowning. Beckett was quite delighted with the effect that a well-cut, brief, midnight-blue bikini had on Castle. It almost covered up the small cold place in her stomach, that reminded her that this wasn’t really summer and that Christmas wouldn’t fill the void. To conceal her momentary shiver, she slinked off the sun lounger and dipped a toe in the pool again. Yep, still warm. She sat on the edge and flipped her feet, sending small waves across the water. Once she was content that Castle didn’t need immediate life-saving treatment, she slid into the pool and luxuriated in its soothing heat, floating.

Shortly, a familiar aroma assailed her nostrils, and she stood up, shoulder deep, to find Castle smiling down at her. Droplets of water dripped from his hair down over his chest, which only drew attention to the strong pecs and unexpectedly chiselled biceps.

“I love swimming,” he said, “and you meet the most amazing entities.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve met a mermaid.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I have. Flipping her feet in the pool.”

“Mermaids have tails.”

“So you admit they exist?”

“No!”

Castle pouted, adorably. “But they do. There’s one right here.”

“I’m not a mermaid. I’m just plain human.”

“Oh,” he murmured, “not plain. Not plain at all, Beckett.” His eyes roamed her form. “I’d say gorgeous, myself.”

She lost her footing and sank with the surprise, and came up spluttering and coughing. Castle whisked her around, and thumped her back until she swam away in desperation.

“Come back,” he wheedled.

“Stop thumping my back, then. I’m not coughing any more.”

“See, it worked.” He stopped at her expression. “I didn’t hurt you, did I? That – I would never.” His eyes dulled. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” She floated back towards him. He extended his hands, caught hers, and pulled her the rest of the way.

“There,” he said. “Back here.” She stood up again, stepped back, preserved a totally bland expression – and then scooped up a handful of water and flicked it at him. “You rat!” he squawked, and retaliated. Beckett laughed, splashed him again, and dived away into a fast freestyle as he was still wiping at his eyes. He roared theatrically, and went after her, scything through the water.

He caught her in a corner of the deepest part of the pool, blocking her escape with wide-set arms and legs. “You splashed me,” he said meditatively. “That wasn’t nice.”

“Fun, though. You’re all wet.”

Castle’s eyes flashed hotly. “The question is,” he growled, “are you?”

“I’m in a swimming pool. Full of water. Therefore I am covered in water, which is normally the definition of being all wet,” she snarked, but he could see little gold flecks in her eyes.

“So you are,” he said with huge satisfaction. “Good.” His smile turned predatory. “Because that means you won’t object when I do this” – and he whisked her up and then dropped her back in the water.

“You _rat_!” she cried. “You…you…aaargghhh!”

“You splashed me,” he pointed out, and smirked evilly. “And you said you were already – aggghhh!” She’d taken her revenge by diving down and tugging his legs out from under him. By the time he resurfaced she had dashed out of the pool and started to dry off next to her lounger. He leaned on the edge and ogled unapologetically. Beckett turned her back on him, with a decided humph, which only gave him a great view of her beautiful backside, wiggling as she rubbed the towel over it. Sadly, she stopped wiggling, dried her legs, and plumped down on the lounger, shutting her eyes.

“While you sleep in the sunshine,” Castle suggested, not commenting on the dark shadows under her lashes, “I could make some more coffee. There might even be pastries.”

Her eyes popped open. “Yes, please,” she replied. The eyes shut again.

A few minutes later Castle returned with hot coffee and a plateful of strawberry and raspberry tarts. He put them on the small cane table, and looked at Beckett, who had turned on to her side and appeared to be sound asleep. He sipped his coffee, ate one of each of the tarts, and didn’t disturb her. If she was warm and comfortable, that would do for now; and besides, he could stare at her excellent figure and face without any danger of being mauled.

Staring at Beckett, while exceedingly pleasant, wasn’t enough to keep Castle from boredom. He retrieved his laptop, and began alternately to write and to procrastinate, gradually tipping to more writing as he became absorbed.

Some considerable time later he looked up. His coffee was cold, the other tarts remained uneaten, and Beckett hadn’t moved an eyelash. He pulled on his t-shirt and shorts, made fresh coffee, and then gently wobbled her arm.

“Uhhhh?” she dragged out.

“Coffee,” Castle offered.

“Coffee? Uh, please.”

“Could you stay awake long enough to drink it this time?” he teased, and handed her a brimming mugful. She tossed it back in one gulp, and passed it back for a refill, which went the same swift way. “Better?”

“Lots.” She looked around, and frowned. “How long was I out for?”

“Couple of hours,” Castle said, “and may I say how cute you are when you’re asleep?”

“I am not cute,” Beckett said forbiddingly, and then spoiled the impression by munching a strawberry tart and licking the filling off her lips.

“You are when you do that. Do it again.”

She scowled, and popped the whole of the remaining piece into her mouth. “No,” she said, once she had swallowed.

“Totally unfair,” Castle complained. “Just like pulling me under the water.”

“You threw me under first.”

Castle realised that he wasn’t going to win the argument. “Yes, okay. But it was fun, wasn’t it?”

She smiled a touch ruefully. “Yeah.” Her stomach rumbled despite the pastry, and she coloured. “Is it lunchtime?”

Castle flicked a glance at his laptop. “A bit past. Shall we have a picnic or eat inside?”

“Inside today, please” – she caught a wisp of disappointment on his face – “but let’s have a picnic tomorrow.” She _could_ make him happy. She could.

“Okay.”

They wandered back into the house and through to the kitchen, where, with only a few bumps and misunderstandings, they shortly had an excellent cold lunch.

“What shall we do now?” Castle asked, with a sly look that made it perfectly plain he could think of many things, none of which involved leaving a bedroom.

She wasn’t ready for that. _Make him happy_ , she thought. “Can we go for a walk along the beach? I know it’s cold out there, but…”

“Sure. Let me go get changed, and then we can go.”

“I’d better get changed too,” she pointed out.

“Okay, okay.” He bounced off.

See, she could do this. It wasn’t hard. She could cover up her deepest feelings and have today, tomorrow and most of the next day without disappointing anybody. Including herself.

***

“Ready?” Castle asked.

“Yep.” Beckett pulled on her beanie and tucked the ends of the scarf firmly into her coat. “Let’s go.”

The wind down on the beach was biting, whipping up the waves into white horses and scouring the sand. Castle chivalrously took the brunt of it, swathed in a large, warm coat that protected him. Beckett strolled alongside him, appreciating his manners. Tentatively, she slipped a gloved hand into his pocket and found his. He stopped short, but then his fingers curled around hers and he smiled. “I’ll keep your fingers warm.”

She smiled back, and they continued to walk, hands locked in the capacious pocket of Castle’s coat. After another few hundred yards, her arm began to protest, and she withdrew her hand. Castle made an entirely involuntary noise of complaint, but that changed as she slipped her arm around his middle and her hand into the opposite pocket, wiggled to be comfortably aligned, and found to her total non-surprise that Castle’s arm arrived around her waist.

“Cold?” he asked. “We can turn around, if you want.”

“Not now,” she replied. “I…” – she hitched slightly – “like this.”

“Me too.” He tucked her in a little more closely, and they went on companionably.

Castle had to admit to himself that he was confused. He loved that Beckett had taken his hand of her own volition, and even more that she’d put an arm around him. But he had to wonder why. She hadn’t exactly given him the impression in the precinct that she was ready to take _any_ steps towards affection…though, now he thought about it, there had been that almost-lean-in at Hallowe’en…. Still, she had been more remote than ever after that, as Christmas approached. Yet here she was, making small but significant moves, and of course she had agreed to come here, which wasn’t _small_.

But then she’d burst into tears, taken some time on her own, and come out calm, contented and sociable, when he’d been sure she was hiding her feelings.

She was _still_ hiding something. Hiding some emotion from him. It couldn’t be a _bad_ emotion – directed towards him, anyway…but there was definitely something going on that she wasn’t sharing. Over her head, some inches below his in her flat boots, he wrinkled his forehead, and tried to puzzle out the Beckett-enigma.

He hadn’t come to any decision when he became aware that his nose was frozen. “I think we should turn around,” he suggested. “We’ve come a long way, and I’m a bit cold. Let’s go home.”

They turned as smoothly as if they’d been doing it for years, and walked back far more briskly than they’d come. The air temperature was dropping fast, and the twilight loomed. They reached the house with twin sighs of relief.

“That was getting cold,” Beckett noted, as they shed their outer layers.

Castle didn’t let his brain interfere with his mouth. “C’mere, then.” He drew her in against him. “I’ll heat you up.” His arms wrapped around her, pressing her in, keeping her head on his shoulder. There wasn’t a speck of resistance: she simply flowed against him. That was fine. She pressed closer. That was fine, too.

Everything was just perfectly fine until she lifted her head and looked straight into his eyes.

And then it became wondrous, because she stretched up and kissed him. Not hard: the lightest of dustings of her mouth over his, and then she dropped back down; but the burn sizzled from his head to his toes, and he knew she’d felt it too. He stroked down over her spine: no demands, no pressure – but they both knew something had fundamentally changed with that one featherlight kiss.

She stepped back, searching his face, and back again. “I… I just need to wash up before dinner,” she stuttered, and left him standing with the universe’s sappiest smile on his lips and overflowing joy in his heart and mind.

Beckett had retreated before she did something truly dumb: the list of dumb things, right now, being headed by ripping Castle’s clothes off and jumping him; followed by dragging him off to the nearest bed and jumping him again. And then again. The worst thing was, she knew he’d _really_ enjoy it.

Which was why she shouldn’t do it. Because she knew, none better, that the pleasure of the moment wouldn’t heal the void in her heart where disappointment lurked. It would hide it, for as long as it lasted, but she couldn’t rely on Castle to patch over her broken soul. She had to do it herself…except she couldn’t. She never had. No matter what she did at Christmas, it didn’t help. Whether she worked the day, or didn’t; saw her father, or hadn’t; exchanged cards and gifts with father and her few friends, or not; decorated her apartment, or not – it made no difference. The disappointment within her reached up and dragged her into the abyss, every year for the last ten.

Mechanically, she stripped off and took a shower: put on a pretty sun dress and sandals and tried to recapture the feeling of summer. When she thought she’d managed it, she left her room to find Castle.

At least she hadn’t been crying again. She could do this. (And if her disobedient mind changed that to _she could do him_ , she paid it no attention.)

***

“Let’s have a drink outside before dinner,” Castle said cheerfully. “I made sangria – like Spanish fruit punch.”

“Sounds good,” Beckett said, not revealing that she knew perfectly well what sangria was, thank you. Snark – for once – didn’t seem appropriate.

“You know what it is, don’t you?” Castle said, even though she hadn’t said anything.

“Yeah.”

“I knew it. But are you ill? Dead? Have you been replaced by a Stepford detective or a pod person?”

“Huh?”

“You didn’t snark at me.”

“Huh?”

“C’mon, Beckett, you know how this relationship works. I make comments and you snark and remind me that you’ve got more layers than an onion. If you’re not going to snark, I’ll be deeply disappointed.”

She smirked. “I like to keep you on your toes.”

“I like you on _your_ toes,” Castle said, with a wolfish look that reminded her of exactly when she’d been on her toes.

“You spend all your time trying to get close enough to stand on my toes,” Beckett flipped back.

“I never stand on a woman’s toes. My terpsichorean skills are unequalled.”

“ _You_ left me in the middle of a dancefloor. That doesn’t incline me to think that you dance like a gentleman.”

“Oh, Beckett. Dancing like a gentleman would be so _boring_. I’d far prefer to dance like a rake.”

“Did I fall into Regency England without noticing?” she asked the air.

“Timeslips? Oooohhhh, I’d love that. You in those beautiful low-cut dresses…me in form-fitting pantaloons and coats – you’d be totally overcome by my handsomeness.”

“I’d rather be overcome by the taste of sangria,” Beckett snipped.

“That’s my Beckett,” Castle oozed, to be greeted by a searing Beckett-normal glare. She stalked out to the pool without a backwards glance. He followed with the drinks, perfectly happy. He liked it a lot better when she was her normal snarky, snippy, sexy self.

Beckett disposed her full skirt around herself and sipped at her sangria. It was, naturally, delicious: the taste of summer in a wine glass. She smiled over the edge of the glass, and wiggled her shoulders in the warmth. “Lovely,” she murmured.

“Sure is,” Castle said, but he wasn’t looking at the sangria.


	4. Chapter 4

“Dinner time,” Castle said, as the sangria had been finished – at least the two glassfuls Castle had brought out.

“What is it?”

“Well, I thought about a barbecue, but the grill doesn’t fit here and I don’t want smoke spoiling the screens. So we’ve got cold cuts, quiche, meat pie, salads; and then a lemon posset for dessert. There’s more sangria, too, or ordinary wine if you’d prefer.”

“I’ll stick with sangria, thanks. Can I carry anything?”

“Sure. Just let me put a bigger table up.”

Castle efficiently found and set up a larger table between the sun loungers, and then they brought out their dinner, which, naturally, was delicious.

“Coffee?” Castle said at the end. “Though I don’t know why I’m bothering to ask because I know you’ll want some.”

“I might want tea,” Beckett said mischievously.

“I have tea. Ordinary, herbal, green, peppermint, camomile, rooibos?”

Beckett pretended to think. “Coffee, please,” she finally said.

“Phew, it’s still you and not an alien replacement.”

“There are no aliens.”

“You don’t know that. They walk among us…” Castle intoned.

“Don’t be ridiculous. There are no aliens, no Men In Black, no ghosts. And the CIA is not hanging around either.”

“You’re no fun at all.”

“Nope,” Beckett said, peeped under her lashes, and nibbled her lower lip in an entirely provocative fashion.

Castle’s eyes darkened, but he sauntered off and returned with a tray holding a large pot of coffee, creamer and two mugs. He poured, and Beckett sighed happily as she buried her nose in her drink. Castle, never one to let an opportunity go begging, sat down next to her, and put an arm around her. When she didn’t instantly maul his nose or ear, he wriggled into a perfectly tucked-together alignment, and enjoyed the unusual experience.

In fact, the whole day had been unusual. Beckett was being – for her – cuddly, snuggly, and even affectionate. He took a massive leap of illogic, based purely on his gut, and suddenly remembered that he’d thought earlier that her bikini had been _making up_ for bursting into tears and shutting herself away earlier. Why she thought she had to _make up_ for actually revealing some real emotions for a change, he truly didn’t know – but he could stand an awful lot of affectionate Beckett, whatever the reason.

The evening progressed quietly, until Beckett’s yawns overcame her comfort. “I have to sleep,” she murmured. “It’s been a good day, but I’m exhausted.” She heaved herself up, and then put both hands on Castle’s shoulders, bent down, and dusted a kiss across his lips. She was gone before he could react, and then he stared out at the falling snowflakes, as happy as he could possibly be, making plans for the following day.

***

Beckett washed and fell into bed, barely awake enough to put out the light, noting only unconsciously the soft scent, vaguely reminiscent of Castle, around her; the softness of the sheets and pillows and the perfect firmness of the mattress.

It was, therefore, deeply strange that she woke in the small hours of the morning, a small, unhappy hole in her chest preventing her from falling back asleep. After only a few moments tossing and turning, she gave up, slipped a light, short, silky robe over her short pyjamas, and ghosted through the house until she exited into the pool area. The heaters were still on, though a little lower, and the air was warm; but outside the screens she could see snow thickly coating the ground, with more falling in soft swirls.

That was her. Desperate for fulfilling warmth inside, a cold, harsh outside. She stared at the snowflakes, as she sat silently on a lounger then leant back, robe over her front, to watch the clouds slowly thin and dissipate, leaving only cold starlight and a crescent moon. The emptiness surrounding her seeped into her soul. There was no comfort from the stars above: no sense of that Star which had, so very long before, shone over Bethlehem, and guided searching shepherds and kings to their salvation. None of these stars could show her the way to salvation, no matter how brightly they shone; how clear their light.

She stayed there, watching, until her body relaxed and her eyes drooped closed.

***

Castle bounced out of his luxurious bed with considerable joie de vivre and expectations for the day ahead, deciding to start it off with pancakes, strawberries, whipped cream and anything else he could think of. He whipped up the batter, and then waited for Beckett to appear. When she didn’t show up after a moment or so (he hadn’t been quiet in his cookery), he poured himself a coffee, and wandered round to the pool to enjoy the view from a summer-warm area. He might even indulge in a pre-breakfast swim, he thought.

Or not.

Crumpled on the tiles was a short kimono style robe. Curled up on a lounger in a very pretty, silky, strokable and above all _brief_ shorts-and-top pyjama set, which went straight to his groin, was a tousled, tumbled, sleeping beauty, otherwise known as Beckett. She was _gorgeous_. He simply gawped, brain fried, eyes locked on. She gave a funny little mumbling noise, and attempted a snuggle into a non-existent cover. On failing to find one, she patted around, eyes still firmly shut, and then curled up more tightly. Castle concluded that she would definitely be a quilt thief, if allowed. He’d need to hang on to the edge. Or (and he liked this idea much better) he could just snuggle up to Beckett so that any quilt thieving benefitted him.

He watched her for a couple of minutes, and then thought to wonder why she was out here anyway. On balance, though, it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t like she was actually outside. Another few moments passed before he gently put a hand on her shoulder. She mumbled again, and folded her arm up to cover his hand with hers. He had a naughty thought. He tried to shove it away, but it just…overwhelmed him. He squeezed himself on to the lounger behind Beckett (ignoring the protesting creak of its legs and webbing) and cuddled her in. His arm eased over her waist, the other wiggled under her neck.

Ten seconds later he was asleep too, with his nose in her hair and the rest of her firmly in his arms.

***

Beckett woke up slowly from a dream in which she was being slowly swathed in a giant anaconda, which sported blue eyes and a mop of floppy brown hair. Relieved to discover that this wasn’t true, she snuggled back into the comfortable arms and broad chest behind her. Everything was just fine.

Two seconds later she jerked into horrified life. Everything was absolutely _not_ just fine. “What the _hell_ , Castle? Why are you in my bed?”

“Urrhhh, I’m not? You’re on my sun lounger.”

“I – what?” She sat up and gazed frantically around. Light dawned. “Oh,” she said flatly. “I must have fallen asleep.”

“I have very comfortable loungers.”

“You weren’t out here with me when I fell asleep. So why were you wrapped around me when I woke up?”

“Um,” Castle said, articulately. “You looked a little cold,” he said with more confidence. “You were feeling around for a covering.”

“Don’t you have spare blankets?”

“But cuddling you was so much nicer. I’m a far better way to keep warm. And you make a really good plushie.”

“What?”

“You make a really good plushie. You know, those soft plush toys you buy in FAO Schwartz.”

“Or Target or Walmart, like normal people.”

“Or Target,” he said amiably, though he’d never bought a single toy for Alexis in Target, ever. “Though you’re far classier than a Target toy. Definitely Fifth Avenue.” His arm sneaked back around her. She tapped it. Notably, she didn’t shove it away, pinch it, break it or chop it off with a magically appearing machete.

“What is this?” she asked.

“An arm.”

“Why is this _arm_ here?” Her tone could have cut diamond, but since he wasn’t undergoing unanaesthetised amputation he knew it wasn’t real anger.

“It likes you,” he said soulfully. “It wants to be friends.”

Beckett made a sucked-lemon face. Strangely, however, she didn’t move away. “That’s so cheesy it’s still in the dairy,” she snipped.

“But it’s true,” Castle whined theatrically. “And thinking of dairies, how about breakfast? I made pancake batter, and there are strawberries.”

“But is there coffee?”

“Beckett! Of _course_ there will be coffee. How could you think otherwise?”

“I’m only following you because of the coffee.”

“I follow you. With the coffee. That way even if it goes wrong you’ll still have the coffee.”

“So it’s worth keeping you around?” she flirted, as they sauntered to the kitchen.

“Oh, yes. For so many reasons.”

“I’m not going to ask,” she informed the kitchen cupboards. “His ego’s large enough already.”

Castle merely grinned, and handed her plates and cutlery while he made the pancakes and hulled the strawberries.

Breakfast over and the dishes cleaned up, Beckett smiled hopefully. “Can we go back to the pool till we have that picnic you suggested?”

“Sure. Soon as you like.”

“Now?”

“Yeah. How about I make a big pot of coffee and we take it out with us?”

“Sounds good.”

Beckett disappeared, only to return in a couple of minutes in the same sarong as the day before, but a different coloured tie at her neck. Emerald green, today, Castle noted.

Beckett had spent most of breakfast with a small part of her mind making sure that the food and coffee reached and entered her mouth rather than, say, her nose or cleavage; and the vast majority of her brain occupied with her feelings about waking up snuggled into Castle.

He shouldn’t have been snuggled up to her. It was _not fair_ of him to sneak out to the pool, find her asleep, and wrap himself around her in such a cosy, comforting way. For the couple of seconds after waking, she’d been totally happy. No little holes in her heart or her gut; no disappointment undermining her world. Everything had felt right.

And then she’d spoilt her own happiness by being shocked and opening her fat mouth. If she had just pretended to stay asleep a little longer, she could have stayed in that blanket of warm happiness, and maybe turned around to face him…

Who was she kidding? She’d have been too scared. Just like she’d been too scared to stay there and enjoy the strong arms around her and the warm bulk behind her, so she’d snapped and then had to try to recover by letting him sneak arms around her.

She was mismanaging these couple of days _so_ badly. Still, she could put on an attractive (sexy) bikini, and have a picnic, and just _stop_ getting in the way of her own self. She should just stop thinking, and act. If only she could.

Maybe she could. Maybe just regard this as a time out – time out of her life. Not be Detective Beckett, but just be Kate. Kate without any Detective Beckett baggage. Yes. She could. She would. And she was going to.

Just…dive right in, and not come up till two days later.

Of course, in all her circulating, circular thinking, she hadn’t once considered Castle’s unrelenting curiosity, or his view of a two day…interlude.

Because Castle, having _at last_ received some encouragement in the form of two dusted kisses and through-gloves hand holding, definitely _wasn’t_ regarding this as a two day interlude after which matters would return to normal. Castle’s brain was busily buzzing with ways to turn encouragement into a new normal. Since, to date, all his dreams had come true through his own efforts and talents, he had no reason at all to believe that the dream of a proper relationship with Beckett wouldn’t come true as well.

So he made coffee, which was always a good start, and took it out to the pool, where Beckett was disposing her lithe body on her lounger. The sarong was on the floor. The bikini was on Beckett. On, in this case, meaning barely covering the salient parts. He didn’t _quite_ drop the tray, but it certainly went down harder and faster than it should (oh God, he thought, don’t think about going down).

And then she smiled at him. The smile said _come and get me if you dare_. He recovered his game, and smiled back wolfishly, which said _oh, I dare. Ready or not, here I come_.

The lounger creaked as he sat down on its end, perfectly placed to put Beckett’s elegant feet and red-painted toenails in his lap, where he could start by massaging her feet. She made a soft noise of pleasure, and closed her eyes, humming happily as he continued to provide the best foot massage in the history of foot massaging.

Naturally, it didn’t _stay_ a foot massage. His strong, clever hands moved up to each ankle in turn, searching out the stress points, smoothing out any knots and strains, then continued to her calves. Despite the lack of any oil or other lotions, there wasn’t a hitch as he caressed the smooth skin, not hurrying, exerting firm pressure but never too much. Her legs had totally relaxed, and the rest of her was following: breathing slowing, no tension at all. He shifted up the lounger, so that her thighs were across his lap. She didn’t make the slightest protest as his fingers rose above her knees, though a fine wash of colour tinted her cheeks. He carried on, watching her face for any hint of discomfort or worry; anything that would mean he should slow down, back off, or stop. Not a crinkle marred her brow, not a single twitch of her eyebrow. In fact, she pushed a little to encourage his fingers to keep climbing, all the way up the outside of her thighs to the edge of emerald green around her hips; delineating the hard ridge of bone and the muscle and sinew below.

“Shall I carry on?” he murmured.

Her eyes opened sleepily, focusing on his face. “No,” she said, but before he’d really absorbed the gut-punch of that negative she’d sat up, cupped his face, and kissed him. “Kiss me instead,” she said into his mouth, so he did.

He took back her mouth with assured expertise, running a line along the parted seam of her lips, exploring the full lower curve that she habitually nibbled, leaving him breathless even when it wasn’t flirtatious, tasting the delicate flavour of her lip gloss; and then entering.

At that point it exploded. All Castle’s control and suave sensuality disappeared as Beckett reacted to his deeper kiss like a firework factory to a flamethrower. She blazed, and he flamed with her. Her hands gripped his hair, his pulled her into his lap and then roamed her back before angling her head so that their kiss became harder, deeper, demanding: firing them both further. He laid her back and leaned above her, till she tugged him down and made it clear with her own elegant, evil strokes that he could be more adventurous.

So he adventured, and explored: one hand roaming over taut stomach and then upward to the edges of her bikini top, the other beneath her neck. Her hand slipped up and down his back, the other playing at the edge of his swim shorts, and all the time she kissed him, and he kissed her, as if there had never been a single moment in their lives when kissing each other was in doubt. His strokes seduced, but hers commanded; and obedient to her unspoken orders he brought them both to unclothed, frantic culmination and then calm; wrapped together, joined together; but finally he rolled them so that she was lying comfortably over him.

She felt so perfectly right, there against him, peaceful and content – maybe even happy, he thought; the small satisfied smile on her lips had seemed more open, more revealing than before. Her eyes had shut; long, dark lashes smudged on her cheeks; lean limbs lax over and around him. He decided that he could cope with hours of snuggled, sleeping Beckett lying on him, shifted very slightly to be perfectly at ease with his arms locked over her so that she couldn’t fall, leave, or otherwise be parted from him without him knowing.

It was warm, and cosy, and snuggly, and…shortly Castle, too, sank gently into sleep, dreaming of a Beckett-filled future.

He woke because his Beckett-filled arms were being tugged upon. When he peered out from sleep-sticky eyes, it turned out that Beckett was doing the tugging. He unclasped his hands, and she slid to the side and sat, still naked and completely unconcerned by it, on the edge of the lounger. His arms sneaked back around her waist, and he plopped a small kiss on to the side of her hip. Her fingers stroked absently through his hair as she stared out of the screens at the falling snow; absorbing the sight as the flakes swirled again, dancing in a harsh wind that couldn’t penetrate the screens or the heating.

“You okay?” Castle asked.

“Mm.”

He nudged her.

“Ow,” she complained. “What was that for?”

“You were miles away.” He smiled lazily. “Stop looking at the winter and remember that in here, it’s summer. The pool’s lovely.”

She refocused from snowflakes to Castle’s face. “I guess,” she said. “What time is it?”

“Summer time!” Castle sang. She punched his shoulder, lightly. “Okay, okay. Four o’clock. Shall we get something to drink – soda? Coffee? Stronger?”

“Not yet. Um… soda, please.”

Castle bounced off to get it, with Beckett taking a short break while he was gone, and then reassembling her bikini around her body and slipping into the pool. It was indeed lovely, soothing the slight ache between her legs, cossetting around her: the perfect temperature. She floated face up, drifting, watching the hypnotic storm of snowflakes again. For a moment, she wished that the storm would strengthen: become a blizzard and block them in where she could simply miss the whole of Christmas, but then she remembered that Castle would be devastated not to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with his family; and that she was on shift to allow others to spend Christmas as they chose.

She floated on, drifting in mind and body, until she dimly heard Castle calling her.

“Soda, Beckett. You’re practically a prune, so come out and dry off and have a drink or you’ll dehydrate and then you’ll really be a prune, which would be no fun at all and you’d be purple not just wear it and people would stop and stare for all the wrong reasons and” –

“Okay! Stop. That’s all nonsense.” She climbed out of the pool and dripped over to the loungers and table to open her soda. “People don’t turn into purple prunes for real.”

“But Beckett, think of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Violet Beauregarde turned purple. So it can happen.”

“TV is not real. Roald Dahl is fiction. And if you believe either of them, you need serious help.”

“A little belief in things beyond the everyday gives life sparkle,” Castle said.

“If I want sparkle I’ll buy a tube of glitter in the craft shop.” Her glare said _Drop it_. Castle did. She threw back half her soda. “That’s better,” she said, and sat back, sipping the remainder.


	5. Chapter 5

Castle ran an unsubtle look up and down Beckett, marvelling at how gorgeous she was in a bikini, and marvelling even more that she wasn’t shooting him for ogling.

Oh. _Ohhhhhh_. She couldn’t shoot him for doing just what she was doing. Granted, she was a lot more subtle about it, but she was _definitely_ checking him out. Of course, so far today she’d kissed hell out of him and seduced him on a sun lounger – absolutely none of which he objected to, and all of which could usefully be repeated on a regular basis.

She’d made the first move earlier…maybe now it was his turn. And maybe if they’d really, er, connected – maybe, just maybe – he could make Christmas a time she enjoyed, not suffered. Even if he couldn’t – right now, he could and would (if she wanted to) show her a _really_ good time.

He stood up, stretched and flexed (oh, _that_ caught her eye), and then stripped down to his swimming shorts and plunged in, in a smooth racing dive; following up with a few lengths of freestyle, which had the happy effect of concealing his considerable excitement. Beckett in a bikini was emphatically _not_ conducive to calm. He hid his sneak peeks at her in his breathing pattern, hoped she wouldn’t notice that he was switching the side he breathed on with each length so he was always looking towards her, and observed with delight that she was openly staring at him. Another two lengths should do it, he thought.

Two lengths more, and he paddled to the edge and pulled himself out of the swimming pool through sheer arm muscle (and many, many more pull-ups in the gym than he liked to remember). He positively prowled to his lounger, and dried himself with swagger. A faint flush of pink coloured her cheeks. Her gaze flicked down, and up again. He didn’t try to hide his feelings with the towel.

Instead, he lifted her magnificent legs, ignoring her indignant noises, sat down, and put her legs back over his lap, as he had done earlier. _Not_ exactly as he had done, however: this time her thighs started across his knees, and then he half-turned, slipped an arm under her shoulders, and simply lifted her fully into his lap.

And then he kissed her: slow, suave, seductive; controlled power and restrained passion; teasing for entrance along the already-parting seam of her lush, soft lips. Earlier had been explosive: this would be smooth. He swept long, tantalising strokes along the lithe outline of her quads, up past her hip to her back, over her shoulder so that fingers danced through the valley of her cleavage and back around her waist to stroke her leg again; an invitation, not an order. She turned a little into him: softening and curving, pressing into his roaming touch; slow burn building to heat and flame in his arms.

He laid her sated body down, and cuddled in, himself unsatisfied but content to wait for later. Loungers were slightly awkward; beds far more comfortable; and anyway the point was that he _could_ wait. Anticipation was a fine sauce; and cuddling Beckett was a delightful occupation; only made better by being pressed against the curve of her ass. She was perfectly fitted to the cage of his bulk. Life attained the peak of perfection when Beckett sighed softly and wiggled in to be painted over every inch of his chest, catching his hand and tugging it into position, entwined in hers, between her breasts. _Not_ an invitation he would refuse.

So, adorably soft and sleepily cute, Beckett snuggled into him and showed no desire at all to remove herself, or him, or any of his appendages. Definitely a win for manufactured summer, even if, outside the screens, the snow still swirled and danced, piling up outside.

Beckett, for the first time in – well, she couldn’t think how long, but certainly since Will had unceremoniously been dumped, and anyway he hadn’t been nearly that skilled – ages, then, _ages_ – felt totally relaxed and utterly satisfied. Now, snuggled up to a big, warm body; wrapped around her in a pleasingly enveloping fashion; she needn’t think about anything complicated.

She felt, in fact, happy, which was somewhat surprising. Sure, sex was good, but… Who cared? She was _happy_. Warm and cosy and contented and just plain _happy_ for the first time in years. She wiggled into perfect alignment, and tried not to pick her feelings apart, but simply rest and enjoy them.

God knew, they wouldn’t last beyond the next day and the return to wintry Manhattan and the hell of Christmas-tide.

She shoved that thought away. Right here, right now – she would damn well _stay_ happy. She found Castle’s broad hand, and pulled it up to clasp in hers and place it neatly at her cleavage. If it should chance to wander a little, that would be just fine with her. If it didn’t, that was fine too. She could stay like this for the rest of the afternoon, right up until dinner time, given half a chance. She could stay happy.

Castle felt each twitch and tense through Beckett’s back and shoulders, but with astonishing restraint, didn’t comment. He was, however, considerably relieved when she sighed contentedly and relaxed. That was much better, and unconsciously reassuring. He couldn’t see, but he guessed that there was a tiny smile on her mouth, and her fingers, linked in his, were petting. His petted right back, thumb stroking her palm. So passed a serene space of affectionate time, until he discovered that a brief break was required, and, creaking up to standing, some flexing and stretching of his arm (which was asleep) and his back (which merely ached from the long stillness).

“Where are you going?” Beckett muzzed: dozy and slightly querulous. “You were nice and warm.”

“Back in a minute,” Castle explained, and disappeared before she could argue or delay him.

When he returned, he brought a fresh jug of sangria and two glasses, but Beckett was unaccountably missing. A second later she reappeared, without comment, but in shorts and a t-shirt rather than a bikini. He pouted a little. He’d loved the bikini – or more accurately, the amount of Beckett revealed by a bikini. She raised a quelling eyebrow, and the pout ran for cover.

“Sangria?”

“Yes, please.”

“Pre-dinner drinks felt like a good idea.”

“Definitely.” She toasted him and smiled. “What are we going to fix for dinner?”

“We could go check out the fridge.”

“We could.”

He slipped an arm around her and steered her back into the house.

“I know the way,” she said.

“Yes, but I like hugging you.”

She humphed, but didn’t move away.

“You like being hugged,” he said smugly. She humphed again. “Humphs don’t work on me. If they did, I’d have fled in terror after I first met you.”

 _This_ humph magically conveyed _my life would have been fine if you had_.

“You don’t mean that,” he said, grinning. “If you meant it, you wouldn’t have come here.”

Yet another humph. Were there four-humped camels? If so, he’d expect to see a herd galloping through the snowflakes – oh. Oh, wow. That was a _lot_ of snow.

“Uh, Beckett?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s snowing.”

“Yeah? It’s been snowing all day, but it’s warm in here.”

“No, I mean it’s _really_ snowing. Like, blizzard snowing. Look.”

She did. “Oh. Oh my God.” She flung an appalled gaze from whited-out view to Castle’s face. “It’ll be gone by morning,” she said. “Or they’ll have cleared the roads, anyway.”

“They might have cleared the roads but they won’t have cleared the drive, if it doesn’t stop soon.”

She paled. “They won’t? But…we have to get back. _You_ have to be back. I have to be back for the Christmas Day shift. We can’t be stuck here.”

“I’m sure we won’t be,” he soothed, but all her ease was gone.

“It’ll stop,” she said, as if saying so would make it so. “It has to.”

“Come and have dinner, and don’t think about it,” Castle tried. She went with him, but her gaze kept returning to the flurrying snow, lying in ever deeper layers, her fretfulness increasing as the snow piled up.

Castle put pizza into the oven, and cracked open a couple of beers to go with it. “We can take it back to the pool, or eat here?”

“Here,” she decided.

“Okay.”

Beckett actually wanted to leave, now, before the snow got deeper, but the conditions were treacherous and she wouldn’t have wanted to drive in them. She wouldn’t ask Castle to do anything that she wouldn’t do herself, and she’d blame herself forever if they had an accident. She couldn’t help feeling, though, that this was the workings of malign fate. If they were snowed in – it wouldn’t be her Christmas that was ruined: she had nothing to ruin. It would be his. She was no substitute for his family.

“I hate” – she almost said _Christmas_ , but changed it at the last instant – “winter.”

Castle cast her a sidelong glance, hearing the changed word. “Why? It’s got snow and sledges and skiing and fun things and everything.” He hoped to tease out her feelings. He didn’t expect what he got.

“It’s dark, and cold, and there’s _nothing_ good about it,” she half-spat. “It’s just a constant black hole of bad weather and worse behaviour. It’s everybody’s excuse for pretending to play happy families when mostly they’re just a seething mass of dislike and annoyance. Thanksgiving and Christmas are just a consumer-led disaster for big business to make profits and fuck the real meaning. It’s nothing but one long disappointment.”

She saw his horrified face – and fled, shoving the door shut behind her and, inadvertently, in his face. In her room, she changed rapidly into warm clothing, snatched up her hat and coat, and ran out of the house before he could stop her.

Outside, she took a few steps, and realised that being outside was probably the stupidest thing she could have done. The snow was stinging; more ice than snowflake; and the wind harsh and biting through her heavy coat. She slipped around the corner of the house, and found a nook out of the gusts. All her ease and happiness had collapsed in one biting sentence from Castle. He hadn’t even meant it to hurt.

But it had. She huddled into the nook, small trails of ice forming on her cheeks: her coat keeping her body warm; her soul frozen. Snow piled up on her hat, undisturbed by the wind. Her hands clenched in her pockets, ungloved.

She’d ruined it all. How could she go back inside and face Castle? She didn’t know why she’d even come, when all she did was disappoint: herself, her father, Castle. She couldn’t even leave. _They_ couldn’t leave until the snow stopped: and now, because of _her_ , his Christmas would likely be spoiled too. _He_ loved Christmas, and because he’d tried to do something nice, he wouldn’t get it.

She steeled herself, and walked back into the driving snow, and into the house.

***

Castle stared at the door which had shut behind Beckett, hoping for answers that inanimate wood could not give to him. He didn’t go after her. All his experience of living with his over-dramatic mother, ex-wife, and sometimes-dramatic (she was a teen, after all) daughter told him that getting between a dangerously overwrought woman and her explosion was likely to be fatal; and in Kate Beckett’s case, that might not be metaphorical. He was sure she wouldn’t do anything dumb.

That certainty dissolved as he heard the outer door open and close hard. He thought for a moment. The wind was driving…okay, if she simply walked around the corner of the house she’d be in the nook between walls, and therefore out of the worst of the storm. He quickly looked out of the window, and saw that she had found it. She’d be safe there, and if she hadn’t returned soon, he’d get her then.

Since he had nothing better to do, he called Alexis, told her about the storm, found that Manhattan was also under blizzard conditions, reassured her that he wouldn’t do anything dumb like try to drive home if it wasn’t safe, apologised over and over if he wouldn’t get home in time, listened to her practical suggestion that they simply have Christmas a day later, or whatever prudence imposed upon them, fussed and sulked and pouted at the vagaries of the winter weather both in the Hamptons and in the city, and finally finished the call.

He’d heard the outer door open and close, softly; and when he looked, there were damp footprints on the mat, and a few drips of water where snow had melted. There was not Beckett. However, she’d returned. He padded down the hall, and marked the closed door to her room; as well as small sounds of muffled misery. In a sudden burst of common sense and uncommon tact, he silently padded away again, poured himself another glass of sangria, took his pizza, and went back out to the warmth of the pool area. He was betting on Beckett trying to repair her shell…but you can’t repair a broken eggshell, and he was determined to get to the yolk: in this case, the core of the problem.

He didn’t even have to think hard. _One long disappointment_ , she’d cried, and taken his utter shock at hearing truth about her emotions as disgust at the sentiment. More, she’d been (for Beckett) frantic at the risk that they couldn’t leave; and that wasn’t because she hated the prospect of being snowed in with him. She’d said _you have to be back_ , and only then that she did.

But how could Christmas be a disappointment? Beckett had her father.

Oh. Oh you idiot, Rick. Beckett had _only_ her father. Her mother was ten years gone, murdered – he _knew_ this – just after Christmas. And her father had spent five years drunk. _Oh, Beckett_. _Oh, Beckett. No wonder Christmas disappoints you._ And in an unsupported leap of gut reaction: _you miss your mom_. He finished his pizza, drank the sangria, and, when Beckett still hadn’t appeared, went back inside. It continued to snow heavily, which wasn’t encouraging for their chances of getting back into Manhattan.

Unusually, he didn’t know quite what to do. Finely balanced were the twin horns of his dilemma: leaving Beckett to her misery, and possibly entrenching her belief that he was appalled rather than totally sympathetic; or entering her bedroom uninvited, sweeping her up and into his embrace, and hugging her until it was all better, which might have him shot or otherwise damaged. Beckett ran away and hid when upset: he knew that already – see, which he remembered crystal-clear, the summer. He’d left her to it then, but he still wondered if that had been the right approach. She’d told him to get out and stay out…but if he’d gone and apologised then, as he had later, would she, could she, have relented far earlier?

For all his observations and Beckett-knowledge, he still wasn’t sure about that, and he wasn’t sure what to do now, either. Finally, he decided that he would rather die having acted, and padded trepidatiously down the hall to the door of Beckett’s room. He hesitated, listening: listened harder, and heard ragged breathing; stifled sobs. Hesitation vanished.

He plucked her up and swathed her into him. “Don’t cry,” he murmured, as soon as he had her in his clasp. “Please don’t cry.” She didn’t even try to claim she wasn’t crying, which worried him: normally, he thought, she’d have denied it even as the shirt he was wearing dripped with mascara-stained tears.

“Spoilt,” emerged from his shoulder, which didn’t give him much help, followed by “Should be happy,” which – oh.

“You don’t need to force yourself to be anything,” he soothed.

“You did,” she snuffled, which he really didn’t get.

“I never force myself to do anything,” he said cheerfully. “That’s why Gina is constantly on my ass about my chapters and I spend all my time procrastinating.”

His cheer had no effect on the raincloud formerly known as Kate Beckett. “I want to go home,” the cloud rained. “It’s all wrong. I’m spoiling it all and I just wanna go home. I want to go back.”

He patted the soft sweater covering her back; stroking down the knit, idly speculating about cashmere or angora mixes in the fibre while her shoulders shuddered and her breath tore raggedly through the quiet air. He didn’t point out that they couldn’t go anywhere: that the still-blizzarding snow prevented it. If it hadn’t been so close to Christmas, he’d have appreciated the manifold possibilities of being snowed in with Beckett, though the many rooms of his Hamptons mansion prevented the even more attractive romance-writer’s trope of being snowed in with only one bed. The universe – or Castle’s realtor – clearly had not had any sense of what was fitting.

However, whatever he’d said to Alexis, he would far rather be at home for Christmas, with his family ( _and_ with Beckett, if only that were possible), than not. He peered over his bundle of Beckett and saw that the flakes were still tumbling dizzily, the view solidly white.

He became aware that Beckett had stopped shuddering, though she hadn’t so much as tried to pull away. Perhaps, he thought, she was simply too tired to fight. Montgomery had benched her for five days, and he wouldn’t have done that without excellent reason.

Now there was a point. It was only December 21st. There were a full three days in which roads and drives could be cleared and return home achieved. He needn’t worry. The chance of a four day blizzard was exceedingly small, at least before January. He patted Beckett’s hair, and dropped a tiny kiss on the top of her head. All that happened was that she slumped into him, utterly disconsolate and radiating miserable defeatedness. He peck-kissed her again, and wrapped her right in against his broad, now damp, chest.

“I’m sorry,” she eventually muttered.

“What for?”

“You’re stuck here and I can’t even be happy.” She sniffed. “I’ve ruined your Christmas.”

“There’s four days till Christmas, including today. Plenty of time to work on my suntan and then get home.” She made a hopeless gesture at the snow. “It’ll clear,” he said. “I’m not worried.”

She sniffed again. She hadn’t looked at him once, and her whole body was locked down tight, trying to curl into itself without actually moving.

“And being happy isn’t compulsory. I know you hate Christmas.” He didn’t think before carrying on. “You miss your mom. It’s fine.”

She dissolved again. “It’s _not_ fine. You did all this and I can’t even be happy with it.”

He frowned at her hair, being all he could see. “Beckett,” he said direfully, “have you been _forcing_ yourself to pretend to be happy?”


	6. Chapter 6

“Have you?” he said, when she didn’t answer, his heart dropping through the floor. “Because I’m _not happy_ if that was a pity fuck.”

Her head snapped up, appalled horror on her face. “No!” she said, tearing herself out of his clasp. “No!” She’d taken three steps to the door before he caught her. “Let go. I would _never_ have done that and if you think I would” –

“No. No,” he reassured, very quickly. “But it sounded like…”

“Let _go_.” He did. She took a step away. It felt like miles. “I wouldn’t.” She paused, and her face closed down. “Did _you_?”

“What?” he gasped, gut-punched. “No!”

She stood, silent. Then – “Why _did_ you do this?”

Castle looked at her. “Uh…” he said, articulately.

“I see. Out of pity.”

“No,” he said.

“So why?”

“Because you were utterly miserable and I” – he stopped. He couldn’t say _wanted to give you a Christmas present of happiness_. “I thought it would cheer you up. And it would be fun.” He breathed deeply. “And it _was_ fun.”

“Till I lost it, you mean,” she said bitterly. “I can’t even be happy and now you’re stuck up here when you should be doing Christmas with your family and I spoilt it.” She slumped back down to sit against the wall, as if standing was too much effort.

Castle came to sit down beside her, and picked up her limp hand in his, stroking his thumb over the back of her hand, twining his fingers into hers. It didn’t seem to warm her any, so he swapped hands and put the now-freed arm around her shoulders, wriggling it down behind her to stop her being forced forward.

“You haven’t spoilt anything.” Castle pushed gently with the arm around her and tucked her into his side. “Everything’s fine at home. I did all my present wrapping and last minute shopping a week ago, and the food will all be delivered whether I’m there or not.” His fingers danced along the outer edge of her thigh. “I don’t need to do anything till three days from now.” They danced higher, and slightly inward. She shrugged them away, and they returned to stillness around the crest of her hipbone, gently present, softly comforting.

“Come here,” he said, a little later, during which time she’d said nothing. “Snuggle in, and stop fretting. I’m not upset.”

“You should be. You go to all this trouble and I can’t even appreciate it.”

“You were appreciating it just fine, up till it looked like we couldn’t leave tomorrow. This isn’t about appreciating it, it’s about you thinking you made me do something when you didn’t. I chose to do this and okay, I didn’t know it was going to blizzard, but if I hadn’t wanted to do it I wouldn’t have. I make my own decisions and you didn’t force me into this.” He grinned tightly. “Anything but. I seem to remember having to wait for ages before you agreed to come at all.”

He turned her body around a little to swing her legs over his lap and her head into the nook between his neck and shoulder; reconsidered, and put her properly in his lap, where he didn’t risk losing all feeling in his fidgety fingers.

“I don’t appreciate you thinking you could force me to do anything I didn’t want to,” he commented. “Do you really think I’m that much of a doormat – or a martyr? After all,” he added, “you couldn’t force me out of the precinct.”

Beckett emitted a minor-league growl: far inferior to her normal efforts, and then relaxed into him for the first time since they’d had pre-dinner drinks. He cuddled and then petted, as if he were gentling a dangerous, but injured, predator.

“You couldn’t,” he continued. “And you couldn’t have forced me to invite you up here because you didn’t even know I had a house here till I invited you.” He smiled sweetly at her. “So stop fretting and fussing. It disturbs my chi and inner peace.”

She made a half-strength disgusted noise.

“And there’s only one way to restore my harmonies,” he carried on, and received a nearly-normal sceptical glare. “You should cuddle up to me.” Definitely a full-strength sceptical glare.

“Did I get a choice in the matter?” she asked acidly. “You seem to have managed that all by yourself.”

Castle dropped his arms. “You can move away any time you like,” he said. “I’m not stopping you.” He paused. “But I think you’d be a lot happier if you let someone hug you occasionally rather than you pushing everyone away all the time.”

“And I suppose you’re offering?”

“Yep,” Castle said simply, which silenced her. “Seeing as you were perfectly happy to go a lot further than hugging. You kissed me first, so obviously you like me – er – _hugging_ you.” She stared at him, dumbfounded. “Look, just stop denying it. You kissed me. This morning you went up like a rocket and it was all your idea to start it. _Obviously_ there’s lots there, so just _go with it_ for a change. Think of it as a late birthday present, since you wouldn’t want a Christmas present.” A tinge of acid of his own burnt at the edges of the last words. She winced. He petted, already sorry for his sharpness, deserved though it might have been.

“Come and have some dinner. Your pizza’s still warm, and there’s still some sangria. You’ll feel better if you eat.”

She heaved herself on to her feet. Castle scrambled up after her, and put his arm back around her waist, gently but inexorably steering her to the kitchen.

The pizza wasn’t at its best, but Beckett picked at it anyway. Castle didn’t think she’d have eaten it enthusiastically even if it had been perfect, but she certainly wasn’t tearing into it now. After barely half a meal, she pushed it away. Throughout, she’d flicked glances at the windows, which showed only the heavy snow, unceasing and almost hypnotic. Castle snitched a slice, which would normally have his fingers smacked, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“That’s all I want,” she said.

“Coffee, then?”

“Please.”

“Go sit down. The family room’s that way.”

She cast him an uncertain glance, but he wasn’t going to sit by the pool where every flake of snow heaped guilt upon her.

“Go on. Shoo.” He flapped his hands in a shooing gesture to reinforce his words. “Watching the coffee machine won’t make it happen faster.”

She trudged off.

Coffee made, he followed her, and found her with her face pressed to the French windows, staring out. The snow was weakening, but the ground was thickly covered. Above, small breaks showed in the cloud.

“It’s going to be cold tonight,” Castle said.

She startled.

“Look, it’s slowing down, and the cloud’s clearing. Much more of that, and the temperature’ll drop hard.” She shivered, and he took the opportunity to hug her again. “Come and sit down. The coffee’ll warm you up.”

“I hate being cold,” she said, to the glass. “I hate winter, and Christmas.”

“I’d noticed,” Castle said dryly.

She didn’t react to his words at all. “It’s nothing but disappointment. Everybody tells you it’s the most wonderful time of the year, but it’s not. It’s miserable. But you can’t say that because everybody else is bought into the lie.”

She made a sharp, unhappy noise. “It’s all supposed to be happy families and love and joy. It’s not. It’s presents you never really wanted but have to pretend you’re grateful for; it’s snide remarks over the dinner table from some relative you won’t see for another year and wish you’d never see again. It’s people saying _it’s all about the children_ and using that as an excuse to shirk their shifts and slope off early because they’ve got _family, don’t you know_?, and that’s more important than anything else. There’s no real meaning to it except half an hour before midnight on Christmas Eve, and even that’s full of people pretending to believe but they’re really thinking about what they’re going to get the next day. They don’t mean it; it’s just for show. The star’s just another piece of tinsel tat because nobody remembers what it means.”

She breathed harshly. “There’s more crime, not less. People stressed because they can’t produce the perfect Christmas ‘cause they’ve no money or no family or just because they don’t get on – and then they do something dumb and they end up in jail. How’s that helping anyone?”

Castle could see the glistening trails on the cheek turned slightly towards him, but her gaze was still turned to the dark night beyond the windows; the pale snow on the ground, and the black sea beyond. The clouds were clearing fast: the small points of light from far away stars gleaming; moonlight beginning to reflect from the freezing snow. Beckett’s view of Christmas was almost as far from his as the stars were from the snow, and he didn’t have faster-than-light travel to bring her closer.

He could, however, bring her physically closer.

“C’mere,” he said, and forestalled his own words by standing behind her and crossing his arms over her, pulling her against his chest. “I’ll keep you warm.” The rest…would have to wait. Joy wasn’t uppermost in Beckett’s mind.

She didn’t resist, but she didn’t turn around and hug him back. So he turned her, instead. Anything to stop her staring into the dark night.

“You haven’t drunk your coffee,” he pointed out. “Come and sit down. Coffee makes everything better.” He tugged gently, and she moved; but only, he thought, because it was easier to move than resist; her steps mechanical, robotic, and her gaze far, far away. He pushed her carefully to sit her down, and waved the coffee under her nose.

The coffee broke the trance. She took it, and sipped slowly, then gulped it down. Her eyes returned to the room, rather than some distant horizon. Coffee, he thought, always their thing, had brought her back from the edge of an emotional abyss. His arm crept around her again. Perhaps touch: warm, comforting (loving), undemanding and simply _there_ – could keep her with him.

“I wanted to be happy,” she said miserably, into the bottom of her coffee cup. “I really did.” She swallowed. “I tried.”

“Did you think coming up here would make you happier?”

“Ye-es,” she dragged out.

“So you were trying. And up till it blizzarded, it was working, just like I said. But now it’s stopped snowing, so by late tomorrow all the roads will be clear again and they’ll get to the drive – anyway, if the county doesn’t,” Castle suddenly remembered, “then I can call Dan and he can, er, make arrangements. I should’ve thought of that earlier. As long as the roads are cleared we can always get home: it might just be a bit slow.”

“We can?”

“We can,” Castle answered confidently. “Unless we have another blizzard, which really isn’t likely, but we can check the forecast if you want, then we can go home any time _we_ want.”

“We really can?” She sounded so very unsure, un-Beckett-like, that his heart clenched.

“We really, really can.”

She started to cry, tired and hopeless, half-strangled, as if she was trying not to weep but couldn’t stop herself. From the tears emerged words. “I didn’t spoil it? It’s all okay? You’ll get home in time?”

“Yep. Don’t cry. It’ll all be okay.”

She snuffled, and mostly stopped. “I never cry,” she sniffled. “This is ridiculous.” She snuffled again, and searched her pockets for a Kleenex to dab her eyes and blow her nose.

“It’s my party and you can cry if you want to,” Castle teased gently, while drawing soothing little mandalas on her upper arm. “But I’d rather you snuggled in and didn’t cry. It’s very off-putting to have you crying when all I want to do is kiss you.”

It took a moment for Beckett to register what he’d said. “What?”

“I wanna kiss you, but not if you’re going to cry. I’m not Georgie-Porgie.”

“What are you _talking_ about?” she said, baffled irritation pushing out misery. “That’s meaningless.”

“Nursery rhyme.”

“Why are you quoting nursery rhymes? This isn’t a nursery and I am not a baby.”

“Absolutely not,” Castle agreed, running a blatantly sexual gaze down her front. “You don’t look anything like a baby. They’re small and chubby and cute – and they bawl. You do the cute bit, but fortunately not the rest. Usually,” he added, which might have been a mistake.

“Are you saying I’m sometimes _small and fat_?” she yelled.

Castle cringed. “That…sounded better in my head. No. You’re tall and absolutely not fat. In fact, you’re too thin. You should eat more.”

“So now I’m skeletal?”

This wasn’t getting better, Castle thought. “No.”

“So far I’m either short and fat or skeletal and according to you I bawl.”

Castle gave up words, which hadn’t come out right in any of the last ten minutes, and kissed her instead.

“What are you _doing_?”

“Kissing you. I said I wanted to, and you didn’t say I couldn’t.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t go swimming naked in the sea right now either, but I don’t see you doing that.” Under the snark, he heard something uncertain.

“I’d freeze all my assets off.”

“The thought of losing your assets didn’t stop you kissing me.” There was still an undertone of doubt and unhappiness. Castle didn’t like either.

“I’ve stopped now.”

“So I see.” She paused. “So now you don’t want to kiss me?”

“Of course I do! But not if you don’t want me to.” His face changed. “You’re messing with me. That’s not nice, Beckett.” He pounced on her, and kissed her again, very deliberately once on each cheek. Then he sat back, and smirked.

She glared at him, Beckett-normal suddenly back – but it wasn’t solid, wasn’t real.

“That’s better,” he said. “Normal glare.” He tipped her chin up a little so he could meet her eyes, and found the pain still lurking below the pretence. “Now, come here, snuggle up, and be comfy. And a bit of kissing me wouldn’t hurt, either.”

There was a tiny humph. “Why should I?”

“Because you want to.” Another humph. “Kissing me makes you happy,” he said in an irritatingly saintly fashion. “And it’ll keep us warm. It’s cold outside.”

“We’re not outside.”

“I can still be cold. That glare of yours is enough to turn anyone to ice. You should warm me up.” His fingers returned to drawing mandalas on her arm. “Don’t you want to?” he added.

“Do you?” she said, uncertainty wavering through her voice once more.

“Yes,” Castle stated.

“Why?”

“You really have to ask?” A surface sheen glistened over her eyes. He sighed. “You really do. I’m not flattered. Do you _really_ still think this is just me wanting some sort of short fling?”

“I don’t know what to think. You” – she stopped.

“I what?”

“You solve mysteries. Me not liking Christmas is a mystery to you.” She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter, but her eyes gave her gesture the lie. “So you want to solve it.”

Castle gulped like a fish. Finally, he found his words. “I know why you don’t like Christmas. It’s no mystery so I don’t need to solve it. Anyway, I only solve mysteries because you’re there. It wouldn’t be any fun without you. You’re the reason I keep coming back.”

There was a pregnant pause. Castle didn’t know what to expect – but he certainly didn’t expect what he got, which was Beckett throwing herself at him and kissing him frantically. He was not, however, too stupefied to kiss her back, nor to close his arms around her to keep her there, and then to run one big hand into her hair and cup around her skull so that he could turn the tables and take control of their kisses. He turned her so that they were comfortable, and returned to the second-best pastime ever: kissing Beckett to his – their – heart’s content.

Some time later, they stopped: Beckett half-cradled against Castle, both of them quiet and content.

“Cosy,” he murmured sleepily. “Nice.”

Beckett managed to open one eye. Castle was tousled and cute, and she was warm and comfortable, just as she had been when she’d woken up this morning with him wrapped around her. Her other eye winched itself open, but she didn’t move away. In fact, she snuggled closer in, and wriggled an arm around his shoulder so he couldn’t leave. Snow, winter, Christmas, and all unpleasantness could wait. While she was cuddled into his embrace, there was a wall between her and her Yuletide unhappiness. This time, she wouldn’t screw it up by speaking without thinking, or jerking away. She’d just stay right there.

So she did.

Castle was at once immensely surprised and immensely pleased that Beckett was cosily snuggled in and staying put. He couldn’t make her stay in his arms, but he definitely liked having her there and he liked her present serenity and he’d like a lot more of it. If only he could get past her anti-Christmas spirit, or at least neutralise it.

Silly Rick. You already did. She’d been absolutely fine in the warmth of the pool area until the snow had come down…so why not take her back there and be summer-happy again? It wasn’t too far…

He put her off his lap, stood up, and before her opening mouth could emit protests swung her up into his arms and carried her out to the pool, laying her gently on a lounger and smiling at her.

“You like summer. I like summer. Let’s enjoy our make-believe summer.”

“We’re not dressed for it,” she suggested, smiling at him.

“We could fix that.”

She lifted one eyebrow, and the smile turned sultry. “Oh?”

Castle’s fingers went to the buttons of his shirt, and demonstrated. The shirt drifted down to the tiles by the lounger; his belt fell on top of it. Beckett ran her eyes up and down his bared chest, finally fixing them on his fingers, at the button of his pants.

And then she eased her sweater off over her head, to reveal a pretty cream bra. Castle’s darkening eyes went straight to the exact point of the plunge at its centre. His pants puddled around his feet. Without looking down, he pulled Beckett up so that he could strip her pants, to find matching cream panties.

Any observer wouldn’t have known who initiated the searing, searching kiss.


	7. Chapter 7

Still standing, Castle invaded: raided and ravaged Beckett’s only too willing mouth; crushed her hard against him with a hand in her hair and a hand pressing on her taut rear; keeping her exactly where he wanted her most. She shifted her hips, and her heat blazed across him; he rolled into her, and she gasped out encouragement.

It was all he needed.

Her bra fell off: he swung her off her feet and then on to the lounger, paused a moment to admire her lean, lissom length, knelt beside her and eased her panties down and away, and then smiled wolfishly. “I didn’t get dessert,” he murmured.

He began at a point behind her ear that made her pant a little and wriggle a lot; holding her hands when they tried to push him in any direction that he hadn’t chosen; moved down and nibbled wickedly across the sharp outcrop of her collarbones; down again, through the valley of her cleavage.

“What to do, what to do,” he mused.

“Me, for preference,” Beckett tried to snark, but it emerged as more of a plea than she’d have liked.

“Patience.”

She growled at the saintly tone, but that came out as rather more of a _stroke-me_ purr. He’d barely begun, though she knew exactly where he was going, and she was hot, bothered and soaked already; small muscles clenching deep within her, heat and desire surrounding her in this magical, unreal summertime.

“I think I’ll just stay here for a little while,” he decided darkly; tucked her nearer arm between his big body and the lounger; slipped one of his own arms under her neck, and let his other hand roam over her beautiful breasts: stroking and lightly pinching; rolling and softly rubbing. Electric sparks ran through her; from hard-pointed nipples to the wash of hot wetness between her legs and back again. She whimpered for more, and fingers were replaced by soft, mobile mouth: lipping and sucking, tiny nips that sent her higher; more and more; almost too much.

“Like that?” a velvety, sinful baritone inquired. “Good,” it answered itself without a pause. “Because I think you’ll like the next bit even more.”

She couldn’t form a coherent response, and didn’t try. His mouth moved down, tongue teasing briefly and wickedly at her navel; a little nip, and then he spread her wide and moved to be squarely between her legs, sliding her down the lounger.

He began with delicate fingertip touches: a slow, soft stroke through her; a small circle over the knot of nerves, which dragged a moan from her; a warm breath to make her squirm and writhe so that his hands came to her thighs to hold her still and open for his predation. His tongue flicked out, and then retreated: sweet torture: she cried out, though not with pain, and he did it again; loving her taste, loving her frantic, helpless movements and his name loud on her lips; the mixture of command and pleading as she tried to force him further, faster; to take her higher and higher – and he would, but at his own measured pace. Her hands knotted in his hair, but he ignored the tugs. Long, slow strokes across her core counterpointed the long, slow slide of his fingers in and out: teasing, tantalising and tortuously timed to take her closer and closer to the edge, keep her there, poised to fall but never quite, desperate for him to give that one last push into explosive climax and release. He held her until he couldn’t hold her any longer, until she had lost even the ability to cry out his name and made only noise, and with now-hard strokes of fingers he sucked on the over-sensitised nerves and she screamed high and thin and came apart against him.

He slithered up beside her, and cuddled. Cuddles were important to him…sex was great – and sex with Beckett was utterly spectacular – but if you couldn’t cuddle afterwards, it lacked…affection. Yeah. Affection. He knew he didn’t mean affection, but Beckett had an unnerving capacity to read his thoughts every time he really didn’t want her to, and if she read his thoughts right now she’d run again. He didn’t think she was anywhere _near_ ready to hear passionate declarations of undying love.

But soon… because she was here, and she was tucked up beside him, and tonight – what was left of it, anyway – he was going to suggest that his bed was much nicer than hers. Just maybe, she’d say _yes_. Here in this time-out-of-time; this unreal summer time…just maybe, there were possibilities for joy and magic that she’d never sought but, unseeking, might find.

And maybe there were rainbow unicorns galloping out of the icy Atlantic, too. That would be almost as likely.

He squashed down the brief pang, and focused on enjoying snuggled-in Beckett. _Naked_ snuggled-in Beckett. So many possibilities…

Oh. _She_ had found at least one possibility. Oh, _oh_ , just keep those fingers right there, Beckett, while he – oh, while _she_ removed his boxers with strict attention to enjoying the contents. _Ohhhhhh Beckett_! Stop that now while he could still – okay, don’t stop that. Her mouth was _sinful_ : hot and wet and _ohhhhh_ thought, words and mind left him.

Had that really happened? Because Beckett was snuggled into him again – it had. His boxers were not upon his hips. Therefore, since she had removed them, she had done everything else too, and it had so far exceeded his heated imaginings of so many nights that his neurons had fried.

“Mine,” he muttered, and clamped an arm around her. Astonishingly, she didn’t answer; merely cuddled closer and made happy little sounds. Outside, the night remained clear, but on looking at his watch Castle found it to be near to midnight. “Let’s go in,” he suggested. “It’s really late to be out here.” She muttered, and didn’t move. Castle decided to short-circuit any discussion, and, as he had carried her here, swept her up and carried her all the way to his bedroom, and through to the en-suite. “Shower time,” he smiled rakishly. “We’re all dirty.” He stood Beckett up in the shower, switched it on, and proceeded to wash her in a way that had nothing to do with cleanliness and a great deal to do with mutual enjoyment, after which they needed another shower that actually involved becoming clean.

Dried off and swathed in his enormous, extra-fluffy towels, Castle grinned at Beckett, mentally crossed his fingers, and regarded her with his best hopeful, pleading puppy-dog eyes.

“You want something,” she said, but it was decidedly less acerbic than usual.

Castle’s puppy-dog pleadings could only immediately be resisted by Beckett in the confines of the precinct, where she could preserve her professional shell. For that reason, she rarely went to the loft without a work-related excuse, and steered well clear of regularly or frequently inviting Castle over to her own apartment, for which occasions she prepared herself to resist.

Here and now, she wondered why she’d ever bothered resisting.

“Yep,” he said, still hopeful and puppyish. “I do.”

“What?”

“I want you to stay in here tonight,” Castle rushed out. “With me.”

“Glurp?” Beckett said feebly, not having expected anything so…well, _affectionate_. Suggestions of hot sex would have been less surprising; staying up here an extra day would have been good… “If you do something that I want,” her mouth said without any benefit of brain and certainly without the permission of her common sense.

“Sure.”

“I wanna stay here tomorrow as well,” she said. “Can we?”

“Definitely,” Castle said, so quickly that she wondered if he’d been going to suggest that in the morning. “So go get your nightie.”

“ _Nightie_?” she said awfully. “ _Nighties_ are for Victorian grandmothers. I do not wear _nighties_.”

“Ooooohhhhh, say that you don’t wear anything. I’d like that.”

“I’m sure you would. But it’s not true.”

Castle’s anticipation level rose so high that his nose wiggled. “Go find it, then. I wanna see.”

Beckett departed. Castle prepared for bed, and waited. Eventually, Beckett reappeared.

“That’s what you wear to bed?” he gasped. “That…that is so _not_ what I expected.”

“Layers, Castle. Layers.”

“Those are definitely unexpected layers.” He pouted theatrically. “I was hoping for a little black chiffon affair.”

“I like a soft t-shirt,” she said. “Anyway, chiffon is fragile. It tears.”

“How do you know that?”

She smirked. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” she teased, and followed up with a sashay to the bed. To Castle’s disappointment, she took the opposite side to him. “But you could find out,” she said, flipped the t-shirt off, and revealed a diaphanous, deep crimson piece of sexuality. Castle’s jaw dropped. Other parts instantly rose.

Beckett smiled wickedly. “Is that more what you expected?”

“Oh, _so_ much more,” he said, his gravelly growl an octave below his usual tones. “ _So_ much.” He dived straight across the bed and hauled her down with him, taking her mouth without hesitation. She rolled them over, and straddled him, giving him a perfect, tantalising view of her body beneath the semi-transparent fabric, rubbing on his hard weight. He pulled her down to kiss her again, and rolled them in his turn, capturing her below him.

The chiffon didn’t rip. It did, however, lie sulkily abandoned on the floor for quite some time before it was replaced on its owner.

***

Beckett woke, warm and contented, with just a tiny stretch of well-used muscles reminding her of the previous night. A heavy hand on her hip told her that Castle was still in bed too; its laxity suggesting that he was asleep. She carefully wriggled around to watch him: cute and sleepy-tousled, face relaxed. She put her head on his chest and listened to the beat of his heart, hypnotising her back to a doze. She felt strong arms encircle her, and accepted it, drifting and at ease. She couldn’t remember when she’d last been at ease, three days before Christmas. Castle had given her a priceless gift: peace. No Christmas present could have matched this benefice.

She didn’t realise that her eyes were wet until Castle gave a sleepy mumble of complaint about a damp patch on his chest. She sniffed.

“You can’t cry, Beckett. It’ll dent my ego. I’ll think you don’t like me and you have regrets.” He stopped, body rigid. “You don’t have regrets, do you?”

“No.”

“In that case, stop crying. It’s deeply unflattering even if I didn’t cause it. You should be happy.”

“I’m peaceful,” she said, which told him absolutely nothing helpful.

“You can be peaceful without snuffling like a buffalo,” he said provocatively.

“I do not!”

“It’s cute.”

“Buffalo are not cute, but I’m nothing like a buffalo. And I don’t snuffle.

“Do you shuffle?”

“You what now?”

“Shuffle off to Buffalo,” Castle sang.

Beckett punched his shoulder. “That’s not appropriate,” she stated.

“Yes, it is. At least, it’s pretty applicable to me.” His baritone rang out again. “Matrimony is baloney, she’ll be wanting alimony in a year or so, oh, oh.” He stopped singing, and smiled cynically. “Just like Meredith, really. She’d have run off to Reno if she’d had to.”

“Dumbass,” Beckett muttered, and only then picked up Castle’s tension. “Her, not you.”

“Phew.” He relaxed. “Now, do you shuffle?”

“No. I am not a buffalo. I do not want to go to Buffalo. I would never, _ever_ support the Buffalo Bills. I don’t even much like buffalo wings.”

“Sacrilege!” Castle cried dramatically. “How can you not enjoy buffalo wings?”

“Pretty easily. I don’t like hot sauce.”

Castle made a face at her, and then smiled. “I like breakfast. What shall we have?”

“Coffee,” Beckett said hopefully. “Lots of coffee.”

“Okay. Come on, then, and we’ll see what there is to eat too.”

Not long later, bacon sizzled in one pan, pancakes browned in another, and maple syrup, strawberries and butter were all on the table, along with a huge pot of coffee and a jug of vanilla creamer. Beckett was already halfway down her first mugful.

“You’re sure we can stay here today?” she asked.

“Yeah. I don’t think they’ve cleared the drive yet, but I’ll check after breakfast.” He sipped his own coffee. “What shall we do?”

“Relax,” Beckett said.

“You? You want to relax? Who are you and what have you done with Kate Beckett?”

“It’s peaceful here, okay?”

The stress note in her voice, which Castle was sure Beckett didn’t know about, suggested to him that he should back off, quick. For once, he heeded the suggestion. “Okay.”

He let her lead the way to the pool, after breakfast, taking the last of the coffee with them. When she’d drained her cup, she dived in, and began to swim in a smooth, distance-eating freestyle. Castle lounged, and watched her, admiring the flex of arms and long, long legs in an elegantly sexy bikini. She must have swum at least a mile, he thought, when she finally emerged, hair dripping, droplets rolling down her taut torso and legs. She flopped on to her lounger and sighed happily.

“That’s better,” she said.

“I thought you ran?”

“Yep, but when I can’t run, I swim.” She made a dismissive gesture at the icy outlook beyond the glass walls. “Like now. I don’t wanna break an ankle on black ice.”

“Not a good plan,” Castle agreed. “Your leg wouldn’t be half as gorgeous in a medical boot.”

“I couldn’t chase down suspects, either,” Beckett said. “Which is much more important.”

“Manhattan would be less safe,” Castle pontificated, patronisingly. From her expression, Beckett was considering throwing something at him. If he were lucky, it would be cold coffee. Instead, she closed her eyes, wiggled into complete comfort, and did and said nothing. Castle went for a swim himself; the alternative being cuddling Beckett, who seemed to be quite happy to remain cuddle-less for a while. He did notice that the slight splash as he dived in opened her eyes, which followed him up and down the pool as his muscles flexed and body cut the water. He realised that his extra effort might have been a touch overdone when he stopped and found that, fit or not, his arms might very well fall off in the next moments.

He fell on to his own lounger with an _ooff_ , but managed to turn his head and smile at Beckett. Sadly, she’d closed her eyes. He did the same, exhausted by his excessive efforts.

“Wake up.” Someone was shaking him. He turned away from them. He didn’t want to wake up. It was warm and he was comfy and waking up wasn’t in the plan. He reached up sleepily and caught whoever it was off-balance.

“Let go!” a very familiarly sharp voice ordered.

Castle’s eyes winched themselves open. “Beckett? Beckett! What is it?”

“It’s lunchtime already, and we’ve both been asleep for hours. If we want to do anything today, we should wake up.”

“I guess,” Castle said unwillingly. “Or,” he smiled, “you could just snuggle down here and cuddle.”

“I could…” she enticed, “but I won’t.” Castle’s face fell. “Lunchtime. And…if you want to, I’d like to walk along the beach again?”

Holding hands. Castle could definitely get with that plan. Okay, so he’d rather be more, um, intimate, but if Beckett wanted walks and holding hands, he was up for it. “Let’s get lunch, then go,” he agreed.

“Picnic?” she said hopefully. “It was good yesterday.”

“Okay.” Castle bounced up to put a picnic lunch together, which they both enjoyed. Beckett, indeed, was displaying some signs of genuine happiness, and munched down food with enthusiasm. Castle could swear that the tiny sharpnesses around her cheekbones and collarbones, just a little too noticeable in the harsh precinct lights, had receded in only the past two days; and the shadows under her eyes had cleared.

“Let’s get changed and go, before we lose the light,” he said. “It’s the shortest day of the year today.” He blinked. “We could have a bonfire and bring the sun back. Pagan rituals and all that.”

Beckett raised her deadly left eyebrow. “Does this ritual include, say, a lack of clothes, a preponderance” – Castle hummed with pleasure at the word – “of alcohol, and possibly mistletoe?”

“No – but it could do if you wanted it to.”

“Nope.” Castle pouted at her. “Nope. It’s thirty degrees out there at most, and I don’t want to freeze.”

“Let’s go get wrapped up, then, and go.”

Several minutes later they were swathed in warm coats, scarves, hats and gloves; sensibly flat, cosy boots in which, no doubt, fluffy, woolly socks kept their toes warm, and braved the cold.

It was a gorgeous day: thin winter sunshine splashed across the beach; the wind had dropped, and the air was refreshing. When the sun set, the temperature would plummet, but for now, it was the best sort of day for a winter walk; boots crunching in the snow. Beckett’s gloved hand sneaked around Castle, and buried itself in his capacious pocket, where his broad fingers entrapped it. His arm settled around her waist, and they walked on through the snowdrifts on the beach, occasionally playfully kicking to cause a little fall of flakes.

“We could make snow angels,” Castle said.

“ _You_ can. I’m not getting snow in my boots.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Yep. But I’ll be a dry-footed spoilsport, and you’ll have frostbitten toes.”

Castle pouted again. Beckett rolled her eyes, as she always did when he pouted, but he saw the tiny spark of appreciation in her gaze. “Snowballs?”

Beckett considered. To her knowledge, Castle hadn’t played any sort of sport involving accurate throwing – which didn’t mean he _hadn’t_ , just that she didn’t know it. On the other hand, she’d been damn good at softball. “Just a few.”

“Okay!” Castle cheered. “I’m going to go fifteen paces that way, then we can each make a pile of snowballs for five minutes, and then have a snowball fight.”

“Wouldn’t it be nicer to make a snowman?” Beckett belatedly thought.

“We can do that afterwards. That’d be great.” He lolloped away for his fifteen paces, by which time Beckett had already made half a dozen snowballs and was piling them up ready to fire. After five minutes, Castle called time, and then squawked. “You’ve got twice as many as me!”

“You snooze, you lose. If you hadn’t wasted time making them perfectly spherical, you’d have had more.”

“They’ll fly straighter,” Castle retorted. “Let battle commence!”

“You’re going down!” Beckett cried, and started to throw.

Castle, she discovered, could in fact throw straight – but so could she, and she dodged better, _and_ she had twice as much ammunition. “I won!” she crowed. “I won.”

Castle made a _you-got-me_ gesture. “I guess so.”

“No guessing. I won.” Beckett smiled triumphantly. “I won.”

Castle humphed, and then smiled. “Snowman building time. Mine’ll be better than yours.”

It was. Castle had advanced snowman-building skills, and his was around two feet taller, with a face and stone scarf effect. “I won!” he bounced, and grinned. “Now we’re even, but it’s getting dark. Let’s go home.”

Arms around each other’s waists, they went, reaching Castle’s house just as twilight began to darken into night.


	8. Chapter 8

“Let’s go back out and stargaze,” Castle said. “Once we get back tomorrow, you won’t see a thing over the streetlights and pollution.”

“At the pool?” Beckett queried.

“Yes. It’s too cold anywhere else.” He leered cheerfully. “And anyway, I like gazing at you in skimpy shorts or a bikini.”

Beckett glared. As ever, it had no effect. She still came back out in shorts and a t-shirt knotted under her breasts, though.

At the pool, Castle had done some rearranging of the loungers. Wide enough for two they might be, but it was still a little cramped to fit both of them on one side by side, so he’d moved the table and put them together.

Once she’d disposed herself appropriately, Beckett, without looking, sneaked her hand across to find Castle’s. It wasn’t hard, since it was sneaking over to find hers. Their fingers linked, but nothing more occurred.

Beckett stared up into the dark, star-sparkled void above them. “Wish upon a star,” she murmured.

“What would you wish for?” Castle asked, unwontedly serious and quiet.

“I don’t know,” she said. _Peace_ , she thought _. A Christmas that doesn’t disappoint_.

Castle said nothing, extremely loudly. Beckett said nothing further, also extremely loudly. Wishes were private, and (superstitious though it was) telling anyone would ensure that it would never come to pass. Instead, she leaned over, and kissed him, which effectively prevented any questions in favour of a delightfully slow, sensual exploration of mouths, then bodies. Afterwards, they simply held hands, until they went inside together, to Castle’s bed.

***

“Thank you,” Beckett said, just before she lifted her small case into the car. Castle, who had tried and failed to be allowed to carry it, smiled.

“It’s been fun,” he said. “I’m glad you came.”

“I am too.” She looked away, and blinked, and looked back again, eyes suspiciously bright. “Time to go, though.”

Beckett didn’t say anything almost the whole way back, but as they crossed the bridge back into Manhattan, she spoke, not looking at him. The veteran of many car-drive confidences from his daughter, Castle kept his gaze on the road.

“Tomorrow night – Christmas Eve,” she began, as if he didn’t know that, “uh…I was going to the midnight service at Trinity Church on Wall Street.” She hesitated for so long that he thought she’d changed her mind about talking... or whatever decision she was making right now. “Uh…if you weren’t busy…” His fingers gripped the wheel, his teeth clamped down on his tongue to prevent him jumping in. “Uh…would you like to come with me?” There was a half-second of silence. “I mean, obviously you’ll have something to do with your family” –

“Not that late,” Castle said before she could retract her invitation. “I’d like to come.”

“I’ll meet you there. St Paul’s Chapel, eleven-fifteen. It’ll be busy,” Beckett said, closing the subject down completely.

She wished she hadn’t offered. Surely her unhappy Christmas company would be a disappointment. But Castle seemed to be completely happy with her unexpected invitation, and had the good sense not to say anything more.

He pulled up at her block.

“Do you want a coffee?” she asked.

“No, thanks. I need to get home. But I’ll see you tomorrow night.” He kissed her hard, before she collected her case and waved him off.

In her apartment, she was glad he’d refused. The air was chilled, though the heat was set exactly where she liked it. Already, she missed the mock summer of Castle’s Hamptons home. She made herself a coffee, and unpacked while it was brewing.

Hands wrapped around her oversized mug, Beckett left the lights very low, and wandered to her windows, to look out at the city. She couldn’t see the stars: in fact, the clouds were heavy, pregnant with more snow. She supposed it was fortunate that they’d returned when they did: another blizzard would have trapped them in the Hamptons over Christmas Day. A tiny, selfish thought said _you’d have liked that_. A far bigger, stabbing thought said _you’d have hated that, but only because Castle would have missed out on the Christmas he’d enjoy because he was doing something nice for you_. She shivered, put her mug down and went to don a warm sweater.

As she returned to the dim main room, the star that she’d left hanging in another window caught her eye. _Wish upon the star_ , she thought. She wished with all her heart and soul that, somehow, she could recapture the sense of peace, comfort and even joy that she’d felt the previous day, and preserve it throughout the Christmas season. As soon as she’d thought it, she felt stupid. Of course a glass star couldn’t grant wishes; no more than could a flaming ball of gas light years away. Even the Star of which this was a poor imitation hadn’t granted wishes, though, if you had faith, it had heralded the world’s salvation.

She turned away. In three days, it would all be over, anyway. A few more days of misery after that, and she could get on with her life for another year. Tonight, she’d simply think back over her short break, and enjoy that memory, rather than older, unhappier times.

It should have worked perfectly. She _should_ have thought of the warm happiness that Castle’s brilliant idea had brought to her; she should have thought of how good he – they – had been together. Instead, every memory simply showed her how her apartment, her solitude, her ready-meal microwaved dinner were each a disappointment in comparison. She drew a bath, and added a glass of wine; and all that she could remember was enjoying the pool and then the sweet taste of sangria. Underneath it all, her body remembered every expert touch, every kiss; and longed for it again, but that yearning didn’t hit her conscious mind. Restlessly, she flitted from one thing to another: TV that didn’t hold her interest; a book on which she couldn’t concentrate; music that sounded cacophonous, not harmonic. Too late to run, to work off her fidgets: eventually she tried a yoga session, but even there she couldn’t focus on the slow stretches and formal poses.

She tossed and turned, desperate not to call Castle, though she’d sent a thank you text almost as soon as she opened her apartment door. He would be with his happy family, and she’d see him tomorrow. _Late tomorrow_ , her errant, unhappy thoughts reminded her, _because you can’t work_. Eventually, she slept, badly, and woke earlier than she’d have liked; still dark, and the white snowflakes falling, drifting through the sullen orange streetlight illumination.

Despite the snow, she dressed to run: thermal base layer under warm gym pants and fitted top with a high neck, warm gloves, thermal socks and her expensive, snow-safe, shoes. She shouldn’t do this before the sidewalks were cleared, but she couldn’t stand the silence and loneliness for another second, and this was _why_ she’d bought the shoes. Replaced the shoes: she’d first bought them more than ten years ago, and worn them to destruction in the first three months; since then, had to replace them annually. As her salary had increased, so had their quality. These were top of the line, and had cost her accordingly.

As she ran, not trying for speed but for smoothness, she thought only about the placement of her feet – a sprained ankle wouldn’t help anyone; the length of her stride, the corresponding movement of her arms for peak efficiency, regular, unstressed breathing. As long as she kept her mind solely on her movement, there were no memories, no mementoes. She couldn’t see the decorations in shops and streets, or above her head, strung across. She could ignore the season, and drop into a state of physicality: not thinking, not stressing, not…anything.

She kept running. Finally, long after she should have been chilled to the bone, she turned for home. Once there, she ran a long, hot bath, filled with a scented muscle relaxant, and floated, deliberately still not thinking, for almost an hour: until the water had cooled to tepid and she couldn’t ignore the world any longer.

After a grilled cheese lunch, she spent some time reading, grimly concentrating on a book which didn’t deserve it, finally throwing it down in disgust. She raked through her bookshelves and finally picked out an old book: gentle, but somehow speaking to her: the hot-tempered priest, the equally hot-tempered mayor of a small Italian village, both trying to do the right thing; and the priest’s unwavering faith in his Christ to guide him. Today, tomorrow, the next day: she needed the reassurance that there was good in the world: that the devoutly Catholic priest and the staunchly Communist mayor could paint the village’s Nativity figures of the Holy Family together, in peace despite their differences: waiting and preparing for the Child Who came to redeem the world.

She wiped her eyes, had her dinner, and went to dress for the midnight service: warm, stylish but loose soft sweater; dark dress pants, heeled boots. She’d add a warm cashmere-mix coat over all of it; a dark beret on her smooth waves of hair; fine leather gloves and a warm scarf.

At eleven-ten, she was waiting at St Paul’s Chapel; looking out for Castle’s so-familiar shape and height.

“Hey, Beckett,” sneaked up from behind her. She swung round, and Castle caught her into a massive bear hug and then kissed her hard. “Shall we go in?” he asked, as if it were a witness interview, rather than he’d staked his claim in front of half a congregation. She should be irritated, not to say outright annoyed, but instead her toes were curling in her boots and she was, for the first time since they’d returned to Manhattan, warm all the way through.

“Yes,” she said, and reached for his hand. He startled for a second, then gripped hers, interlocking gloved fingers as they walked into the church and found seats upstairs in the gallery. The organist was playing softly. When they sat down in the pew, Castle’s arm snaked around her back as if that was the natural order of things, and she simply snuggled into it, safe and warm, all fretfulness gone, sinking into the music.

The congregation stood, the minister entered, and the service began with the call to worship. The first chords of _Hark the Herald Angels_ rang into the silence, and then the packed church lifted their voices as one in the familiar tune.

Castle blinked as Beckett’s voice soared beside his baritone: a perfectly pitched mezzo of power and harmony. He noticed that she didn’t look once at the hymnal in her hands: her eyes raised above the minister and looking far, far away: back into that long-ago town of Bethlehem, on a winter’s night: the inns full and the stable the only place for the Holy Family to stay; the shepherds watching their flocks on the cold hills; the Magi travelling, following the bright Star to the end of their quest.

He bent his head for the prayer, and then listened attentively to the first reading, by an elderly black man with a beautiful, deep, resonant voice. _And it came to pass that in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed…And all went to be taxed, each one in his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth into Judaea, unto the city of David which is called Bethlehem…To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child…And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the inn._

Beckett lost herself in the words, taken back to the true meaning of Christmas: thinking of the first time she remembered coming to this same midnight service with her parents: her mother’s words, _when I was young, Katie, we called it the Watchnight service_. Why?, she’d asked. _Because the world was watching the Star, and wondering what it meant: the shepherds, the Magi, everybody. Everybody watching as Jesus was born_.

The strains of _In the Bleak Midwinter_ pierced through that memory, and she rose to sing: the words as fresh on her tongue as the first time she’d learned them; as familiar as her own hands. Castle had a good voice, she vaguely thought, smooth and velvety; sure of its pitch and tone.

They sat again, for the second reading, given by a middle-aged woman with a clear-spoken soprano. _And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them…Fear not: for, behold, I bring tidings of great joy…_

 _Great joy_ , Beckett thought, and wished that she could have found joy in the season. Her eyes fell upon the Christmas decorations, and saw the star, gleaming in the light. _Wish upon the star_ , she thought again, and once more hoped with all her might that she could find the magic of Christmas once more. She glanced at Castle, and saw that his attention was firmly on the beauty and power of the words: the evocation of the wonder and hope that the angelic host had brought. Somehow, in his face, she saw more than just presents and too much food; more than playing happy families and trying to pretend it was a wonderful day. As far as she knew, he wasn’t religious.

 _But he gives_ , she thought suddenly. _He loves to give_. Maybe that was what she had just seen? He’d given her joy and peace over the last three days: sure, _she’d_ found some of it hard, but he had opened his home and his generous heart to give her exactly what she’d needed.

Her chain of thought was broken by the opening of _O Little Town of Bethlehem_ , but as she stood she moved a little closer, and found his hand, interlacing her fingers with his. He flicked her a surprised look, but wriggled his fingers closer.

 _The hopes and fears of all the years_ , she sang, and suddenly _heard_ the words of the hymn. Her hopes and fears, over all the last ten years. And reprised in the final verse: _the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight_. Time to face her fears, and in so facing them, pass through to hope.

She should have listened closely to the Christmas sermon, but though she heard each word of a sincere and faithful address, her mind was working over her revelation: face her fears, and find hope. What did she fear?

Disappointment. But whose? Hers, in her Christmases spoiled forever by murder – or was it? Was it the knowledge that her father had fallen, or that she couldn’t save him, or that she had thrown her life plan over and become a cop: a career in which an unsolved case was a disappointment to someone –

To her. Her unsolved case. Her – oh God. Her guilt that she’d never solved it, _her guilt_ preying on her so that no matter how hard she tried she always felt that _she_ was the disappointment, searching her father’s face for signs. She’d always felt the sting of disappointment because first she’d been disappointed in her father, but then, when he’d defeated his demons, in herself for never solving it.

But hope was standing right there next to her.

The address had finished, and the organ played the introduction to _Still the Night_. She stood and sang, but all the time she was turning over the realisation of the last few moments. Unnoticed, she was still holding Castle’s hand.

The minister lit the candles, and the flames blazed up, reflected in the star that she’d seen earlier: the final prayer was said, and then the organ chords rang out triumphantly with _O Come, All Ye Faithful_. Suddenly sure of herself, she lifted up her voice in celebration: all the verses, now that the hour had passed through midnight and it was Christmas morning: the Child was born.

The minister closed with the Benediction, and the organ crashed out the voluntary as the service concluded. Beckett didn’t move immediately, though Castle began to stand, and then sat down again with his arm around her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes. Yes. It’s all good.” She stared at the star, and the candle flames reflected within its glass. “It’s all good,” she repeated, and smiled at him, open and happy: rose to walk out with him, hands locked.

While they’d been in the service, the skies had cleared, and even over Manhattan stars twinkled in the sky. “Have you time to come back for coffee?”

“Sure,” Castle said, understanding that she didn’t mean it as an invitation to bed.

Beckett was quiet all the way to her apartment, but Castle wasn’t offended. Her silence was soft, and a smile played on her lips; she snuggled into his arm around her, and when they walked, her arm also came around him as it had in the Hamptons.

She made their coffee, and squared herself to face him. “Castle…” she began, a little uncertainly…”uh, would you help me put my Christmas decorations back up?”

He stared at her, dumbfounded. Whatever he’d expected, it hadn’t been that. “Sure,” he said. “I’m great at that. Point me to the boxes and I shall flex my chiselled muscles as you direct.” She rolled her eyes, but he saw relief in them, and more, glints of happiness. “Lay on, McBeckett, and damned be he who first cries ‘Hold! Enough!’”

“It’s not a duel,” she chided, but affection sneaked through her tones. “The boxes are all here.”

With two of them, everything was up in no time, finishing with the tree, lavishly covered with lights and tinsel, baubles and bells. Finally, Beckett handed Castle another star. “Put that at the top,” she said. He did.

When he turned back around, she was staring out – no, she was staring _at_ the star in the window. “It was the star,” she said softly. “Lighting the way to salvation.” Castle waited. “I realised…I just had to meet my fears and pass through. Following the star.” She didn’t turn to him. “But if I hadn’t – if _you_ hadn’t taken me up to the Hamptons, I wouldn’t have invited you to the service, and I wouldn’t have realised…”

Castle made a tiny noise. He didn’t see what she meant at all.

“When you were listening to the second reading. Something in your face. You give. Gave. You gave me what I needed when I needed it most and when I didn’t even know I needed it.”

Castle picked the key point out of Beckett’s incoherency. “All I wanted,” he said softly, into a moment too important for cheap quips, “was for you to be happy.”

“And you gave me that,” she said, and turned to him. “Peace and happiness.” She took two steps. “ _Fear not_ ,” she quoted. “That was what I needed. Joy.” One more step, and she cupped his face. “I wished for the magic of Christmas to come back, and it has.”

She looked up him. “You brought it back.” She swallowed. “There was one carol they missed.”

He waited, arms loosely about her.

“ _Love Came Down At Christmas_.” And she kissed him.

**_Fin._ **


End file.
